It Takes a Village
by midnightcat16
Summary: When a small child with orange hair and rosy cheeks stumbles upon their doorstep, the vizard decide to try their hand at this whole "parenting" thing.
1. Difficult Decisions

A/N: I've had this idea playing around in my head for a while, so I decided to actually sit down and put it into words. Updates will be (hopefully) fairly consistent since I should have a little bit of free time before I have to go back to real life and stop thinking about Bleach so much. Reviews make me write faster. Enjoy ;)

* * *

 **Sunday**

 **12:22 p.m.**

"Shinji."

…

"Shinji," Hiyori repeated, less patiently this time.

Shinji did not look up from where he was crouched on the sofa in front of the television, attention focused on his video game.

"Get up, I wanna watch TV."

"I'm busy. Why don't you go make me a sandwich or something instead?"

 **12:25 p.m.**

Love looked up from his new edition of Shonen Jump.

"Hiyori, what did Hachi and Mashiro say they were bringing back for lunch?"

"Beats me," Hiyori answered from her lazy sprawl on the couch, picking her nose and flicking the contents at an incapacitated Shinji lying on the floor.

 **12:32 p.m.**

All eyes looked up as the front door slid noisily open.

"We brought food!" Mashiro exclaimed proudly, immediately passing out the bento boxes to everyone except Kensei, enjoying the vein in his head grow noticeably bigger as he angrily and unsuccessfully tried to grab it from her.

 **12:34 p.m.**

"Hachi, come join us," Rose offered kindly, as one of the few who wasn't all but inhaling his food.

Hachi was still standing quietly in the doorway, offset by the yell of triumph Kensei uttered as he finally secured his lunch.

He held up one of his colossal hands in a placating manner.

"That's alright," he declined hastily. "I think I'll save mine for a little later."

He tried to make a speedy escape.

"What do you have behind you, Hachi?" Love asked, curiosity overcoming his hunger.

"Er, nothing…"

"Probably a cat," Hiyori proclaimed through a mouth full of food she had stolen from Shinji's bento box. "Get rid of it already."

Wide brown eyes peeked out behind one of Hachi's massive legs.

 **12:36 p.m.**

"A girl?!"

"I found her wandering around all by herself. She clung to my leg and wouldn't let go."

The vizard were crowded around Hachi now, lunch forgotten (or in some cases, already consumed). The orange-haired girl sat on the floor, absorbed in the loaf of bread she was devouring.

"Isn't she so _cute_?" Mashiro squealed, bending down to pat the girl on the head. "Can we keep her? _Pleeeease_? I'll make sure to feed her and take her on walks and—"

"She's not a puppy, Mashiro!" Kensei barked, his arms crossed, features knitted in a scowl. "What do you know about taking care of a little human girl? Hachi, take her back to where you found her. I bet her parents are looking for her."

"You're so _mean_ , Kensei!" Mashiro pouted, throwing herself on the ground and clutching his legs in a show of childishness she knew was sure to irritate him.

Love stepped in at that moment to break up the tantrum and argument he knew would follow.

"Kensei's got a point, Hachi. You don't know that the girl's parents _aren't_ looking for her."

"I don't think she has any parents," Hachi answered, launching into the story of how he and Mashiro had gone to pick up lunch and ended up bringing back more than bento.

 **12:45 p.m.**

"Killed by hollows?! Are you sure?"

Hachi nodded in confirmation.

"All the signs were there. No doubt about it."

"If that's true, how is it this little twerp survived?" Hiyori pointed out, not actually caring about the answer. She was crouched next to the child, eyeing her with distaste.

"She must have some kind of superpower!" Shinji exclaimed. "Laser eyes!"

"Super strength!" Mashiro joined in.

"Or maybe she just ran and hid," Lisa pointed out sensibly.

The girl didn't offer any information. She had moved on to her next loaf of bread. Her cobalt blue barrettes glinted in the pale light seeping in through the broken windows.

"I still think it's laser eyes."

 **2:37 p.m.**

"It looks like you were right, Hachi," Kensei reluctantly admitted to the enormous vizard. "It was a hollow. Everyone thinks the whole family is dead. Parents, brother, and the little girl."

Kensei, after listening to ten minutes of arguing and nothing getting decided, had gone off to do his own investigation. He had found the house and the yellow tape enclosing it, trapping out the crowd of curious neighbors murmuring sympathetically about the poor family who had just moved from out of town.

"So it looks like the poor girl lost her entire family in one day." Rose glanced compassionately at the girl's slumbering form on the couch where Love had gently placed a blanket over her.

"Though it doesn't appear that she even realizes it," Lisa said, eying the empty bags and food wrappers that attested to the child's enormous appetite.

The orange-haired girl had contently finished her loaf of bread and then promptly fallen asleep in the middle of tearing apart a red bean bun. Its mangled form lay forgotten next to the wrappers, the red bean innards oozing onto the floor.

Hachi had gently scooped up the girl and placed her on the couch amidst Shinji's grumbling about being forcibly removed from the sofa for the second time that day and just wanting to beat the next level in his video game.

Hiyori watched the compassionate exchange through eyes narrowed to slits.

"Who cares, anyway?" she muttered dismissively and shoved her hands in her pockets, turning around to walk away.

 **7:27 p.m.**

Kensei and Love had made dinner, and it was Shinji and Rose's turn to wash dishes. They worked quietly for several minutes, until Rose finally broke the silence.

"What do you make of all of this?" he asked, carefully drying off a dish Shinji had just handed him.

Though Hiyori would vehemently deny it, and though the vizard had no real hierarchy or leader governing their group, it was Shinji's opinion that mattered most.

Shinji sighed, serious for once.

"It's a difficult situation, isn't it? A human child part of a group of exiled soul reapers with dangerous hollow powers. What is there to do? We could send the child back to the human world, but if the hollow is still out there and looking for prey, we could be sending her to her death. We are the only ones who know what happened to her family and she deserves to know that when she is old enough to understand."

Shinji acted like an idiot most of the time (especially when Hiyori was involved), but that didn't mean he actually was.

"But at the same time, it might make her resent us for our powers, which would be impossible and impractical to hide from her if she were to stay with us for a long time," a voice behind them added.

Kensei was standing in the doorway.

"The kid's still asleep. We're having another meeting."

 **7:53 p.m.**

Discussions were had, arguments had been made, and it was now time to cast the final votes.

Mashiro and Hachi both gave emphatic yeses, Rose and Love quickly following suit. Lisa said she didn't care any which way as long as she could just read her magazines in peace, and Kensei didn't say no, which basically meant yes. Shinji also voted yes, as long as the kid promised to show him how to use her laser eyes.

Hiyori listened to the discussion with arms crossed, her permanent scowl even more pronounced.

"This isn't daycare," she complained. "There's no room for brats here."

"Why are you here then?" Shinji muttered to himself. He was rewarded with a swift kick to the rear.

"We're all going to do our part Hiyori," Mashiro said soothingly. "You don't have to do anything if you don't want to."

"Whatever," Hiyori said finally. "Just don't expect me to change any of the brat's diapers."

"They say it takes a village to raise a child," Hachi said, adding his own patient opinion. "And what are we if not our own makeshift family?"

"You call this group of circus freaks a family?" Hiyori muttered, and stalked off.

 **7:56 p.m.**

The girl was still sleeping, so it wasn't as if they could have a proper celebration just yet. The vizard weren't much for parties anyway.

They moved her into Mashiro's room for now, until they set up another place for her. Kensei swore he could hear Mashiro still squealing in delight over the arrangement three doors down and he secretly pitied the girl a little bit.

"Did she say what her name was, Hachi?" Rose asked upon realizing that now that she was officially part of their merry group, they could call her something other than "the kid" or "the girl."

"Orihime, though she didn't give a last name."

"A princess, eh? The princess and the vizard. Sounds like the name of a terrible band," he mused.

Leave it to Rose to compare everything to music.

"How many villages did you say it took, Hachi?" Love asked tentatively.

"Errr, just one I think."

"We might need more than that," he said, watching Mashiro excitedly sketch a design for a matching jumpsuit and scarf for their new family member.


	2. Love Languages

**Monday**

 **8:47 a.m.**

"Oy! We're leaving!" Lisa yelled over her shoulder, walking out the open door with Mashiro trailing behind.

The green-haired woman had Orihime tucked under her arm, the girl happily munching on another red bean bun.

"Where are they going?" Kensei asked Love, still wearing his apron from cooking breakfast.

"Shopping for clothes for the kid. Since that's her only outfit and she doesn't even have shoes."

Kensei looked over Orihime's bare feet, tiny pink toes wiggling in delight at her breakfast selection. Then he glanced at the cluttered table, Mashiro's clothing sketches lying in full view on top of the mess.

Kensei quickly yanked off his apron and threw it at Love.

"What are you doing?"

"Going with them. I'm not spending the next few years of my life watching that girl trot around in a matching jumpsuit."

"Have fun," Love said impassively, taking another deliberate sip of coffee.

 **2:24 p.m.**

"Isn't shopping so much _fun_?" Mashiro squealed, as an exhausted Kensei dumped a pile of shopping bags on the floor.

"Fun?! You made me carry all the bags!"

"But that's because you're so strong! Don't show off all your muscles if you don't want to carry heavy things."

A vein twitched in his forehead.

"He's just mad because that woman thought you two were a couple and Orihime was your daughter," Lisa contributed.

The vein got bigger.

"Though I don't know why she thought that, he's not nearly attractive enough to be father to someone as cute as—"

The other five vizard gathered around surreptitiously to watch the fireworks.

 **4:33 p.m.**

"Stop feeding her so much candy. She's going to get sick," Kensei said lazily from where he was sprawled on the couch. He hadn't moved for the past two hours, claiming that he was still recovering from his shopping session with the girls.

Shinji was sitting on the floor cross-legged in front of Orihime offering treats to get her to say his name. She simply giggled, shouting, "More! More!"

The candy was supposed to be for rewards, but she had charmed her way into half the bag, and then bullied her way into the rest, throwing one of her new tiny pink shoes at Shinji's head.

"Looks like she takes after Hiyori after all," Shinji commented, rubbing his head.

Hiyori shot him a dirty look from where she was reading manga, to which Orihime promptly responded by throwing up all over Shinji's lap.

"Told you," came the smug response from the couch.

 **7:07 p.m.**

"You know, I'm not an expert on human children, but I think she needs to eat something other than red bean buns."

Lisa was looking down at the girl, hand on her hips.

Orihime was still too young to understand well what was going on around her, but her love language was food (scratch that, bread) and as far as she could tell, these new people loved her more than anyone else ever had in her short two years of life.

"You tell her that," Rose rebutted.

He had been the one to cook dinner this time, and set a plate full of steamed vegetables in front of Orihime, on the box that was serving as her temporary table. The orange hair girl was unimpressed and let her feelings known.

She was happily munching her way through her third bun, overturned plate of vegetables lying abandoned and unwanted on the floor.

"We'll make Kensei make her eat proper food tomorrow," Lisa suggested. "He's heartless enough, he can withstand her."

Kensei pulled his headphones away from one of his ears.

"What?"

 **Thursday**

 **9:54 a.m.**

Kensei and Shinji were sparring. Orihime had already become used to this, as frequently as her new family seemed to train.

The sparring was done without masks of course, at least while Orihime was watching. They did not want to frighten the girl and have to reassure that her new family was not made up of terrifying monsters.

They weren't sure they could honestly tell her that they weren't.

This morning was Lisa's turn to entertain her, and the two girls were sitting next to each other peacefully, both fully absorbed in their own reading material.

Kensei ducked as Shinji's sword swung over his head, missing him by a hair's breadth. Kensei retaliated with a swing from his own sword, which Shinji blocked effectively.

The two men paused, allowing the other to catch their breath.

Kensei glanced around the room while he waited for his heart rate to slow. His eyes fell on Orihime sitting quietly next to Lisa, engrossed in the magazine she was slowly flipping through.

He turned back to Shinji and readied his sword.

"Wait, Lisa! What is she reading?!"

Lisa didn't look up when she answered. "Just something that I lent her."

"Did you give her one of your dirty magazines?!"

Lisa glared at him and replied stiffly, "I don't read dirty magazines."

He darted over to where the two were sitting. Orihime looked up at him quizzically.

He grabbed the magazine she had been looking at and shoved it in Lisa's face. "Then what do you call this?!"

"I'm just giving her a lesson on female anatomy. There's nothing wrong with that."

Kensei grabbed a startled Orihime and threw her over his shoulder. He strode out of the room, presumably to find more age appropriate reading material.

Shinji stood alone where not a minute ago, he had been sparring with Kensei. He yawned, bored.

"Who's next?"


	3. A Heinous Plot

A/N: Thanks to everyone who reviewed! Reading all your lovely comments gives me warm fuzzies. Next chapter should be coming pretty soon!

* * *

 **Saturday**

 **3:27 p.m.**

It had been almost a week since the addition of the vizard's newest member. Hiyori had spent the entire week sulking and avoiding as much interaction with the new girl as possible.

Orihime didn't really seem to notice.

She was sitting on the sofa now, one of her pink shoes lying on the ground where she had absentmindedly pulled it off and dropped it. She was flipping through a picture book, one that Kensei had dug up for her somewhere. It looked to Hiyori like she was just looking at the pictures and not reading, but it had been several, several years since the yellow-haired vizard had been around children and she'd be damned if she could remember when those brats were supposed to be able to read anyway.

It didn't matter. Her plan didn't require words, written or otherwise.

She eyed the sofa at a safe distance, scouting out the area. Hachi was the only other one in the room. It was his turn to watch over the girl that afternoon, but she could hear him snoring. Hiyori knew that most of the other vizard were in the room below the entrance, training with masks in private, away from impressionable and easily frightened two-year-olds.

It was the perfect opportunity.

 **3:30 p.m.**

Orihime hummed to herself, looking at the bright, colorful pictures in the book that man had given her. She prided herself with being an expert on picture books, and she flipped through the pages skillfully. Someone else had put books in her hand once, explaining the pictures on the page and reading the scribbles that she couldn't yet make out. Someone else who would sing her to sleep and tell her stories to drown out the yelling and the screaming that had once been a constant background noise in her life. But she could no longer remember what his face looked like.

Her nose twitched as a familiar aroma filled the room and her train of thought was instantly derailed. Could it be? She would recognize that smell anywhere.

It was the unmistakable smell of a red bean bun, recently opened from its package.

Her book dropped to the floor as she carefully slid off the couch and onto the ground to do some investigation. She pushed the book to the side as she looked around.

There!

Lying on the ground not three feet in front of her was a chunk of bread a little smaller that the size of her fist, red bean paste slathered on one side. She toddled forward, picked it up, and happily shoved it in her mouth, whole.

Orihime furrowed her brow in confusion. Where was the rest of it? She looked around again.

There it was! Another piece, identical to the first one. She tottered forward and quickly gobbled it up.

Every few feet she found another chunk of bread and she did the same with each one. Soon she was outside, following the trail, not really concerned where she was going as long as there was food to guide her way. Orihime did not stop to think why her favorite snack was torn apart, each piece carefully placed just a few feet away from each other, the trail leading out the door. She was just doing her job as a fearless explorer.

 **3:36 p.m.**

Hiyori was crouching in the shadow of a nearby building, mentally patting herself on the back at how flawlessly her plan had worked. Never underestimate how much human brats love food, she told herself. She absentmindedly wondered if the same plan would work on Shinji.

She briefly pushed that thought away and grabbed another package from her knapsack. She would lead that kid all the way to town, to another family of real humans who actually wanted to put up with all her crap.

A brief commotion made her look up from where she was digging through her knapsack. She peeked around the corner to verify what was happening, though it was unnecessary—she knew that loud girlish squeal when she heard it.

Mashiro had Orihime in her arms and was cooing at her in a way that made Hiyori want to vomit. Orihime was struggling to get back down and eat the rest of the red bean bun pieces Hiyori had deliberately placed on the ground. From the bags in Rose's hands, she guessed they had just gotten back from grocery shopping for dinner.

Crap. Hiyori decided to cut her losses and sneak back into the warehouse and play dumb about how the girl had gotten out.

She started backing up, mapping her escape route in her head. She froze when she heard a voice behind her.

"Nice try, Hiyori. You know, all you're doing is ruining her dinner."

Hiyori spun around and sputtered indignantly.

"Shinji! What are you talking about?! I'm just going on a _walk._ What are you doing creeping around here, anyway?!"

"Creeping? You're the one suspiciously hiding behind a building."

"I am not hiding! I told you, I was just—"

Their conversation was interrupted by Orihime's shrieks of delight as Mashiro began energetically tickling her. Rose's attention was focused on the ground, looking at the scattered bits of red bean paste in confusion.

"Whatever," Shinji said over his shoulder, striding in the direction of the warehouse. "You know it's your turn to make dinner tonight, right? It better be something good, not like the normal burnt mess you usually make when you cook."

Hiyori resisted the urge to throw her sandal at the back of his ugly, fat head.

 **3:42 p.m.**

Shinji waved away the enormous vizard's torrent of apologies when he walked in.

"Let's just make sure to put up an extra barrier at night from now on, alright?" he said quietly, eyeing the still giggling girl in Mashiro's arms with concern.

Hachi nodded solemnly.


	4. Trial and Error

A/N: Next chapter! Little Orihime is starting to grow up. Btw, if you don't know who Anpanman is, you should do a quick google search. As much as Orihime loves all things related to bread, I feel like she probably would have obsessed over the show as a kid.

Let me know what you thought :)

* * *

 **3 A.O. (After Orihime)**

 **Saturday**

 **6:16 p.m.**

"No Anpanman, be careful!" Orihime shouted. "He's right behind you!" She leaned forward, desperately trying to warn him.

"She really gets into it, doesn't she?" Lisa commented to Love, watching Orihime crouch in front of the TV, face inches away from the screen.

"Watching her is more entertaining than the show itself," Love replied.

"Quick, Uncle Jam has to bake you a new head!" Anpanman had selflessly given part of his red bean filled head to a starving boy, saving the child but leaving him powerless to face the evil Baikinman, and Orihime was anxious for him. She knew he needed to get back to the baker as soon as possible so that he could replace his damaged head for a freshly baked one, giving him the power to vanquish Baikinman and save the village.

"Time for dinner, Orihime. And what did I tell you about being so close to the TV?" Kensei scolded, the exasperation in his voice making quite obvious that he had given the reminder more than once.

The engrossed five-year-old didn't answer, completely immersed in Anpanman's plight.

Orihime had discovered her love for the red bean filled superhero one day while Shinji was flipping through the channels. She had shrieked in delight upon discovering that superheroes could be made out of her favorite food group, startling Shinji so much that he fell off the couch. Ever since then, Orihime had been head over heels for the animated hero, begging every one of her family members to rent every single DVD that Anpanman appeared in, and insisting that they also watch them with her.

They usually complied, some of them more reluctantly than others. Orihime was left to spend the next hour in Anpanman bliss, too absorbed to notice that her TV partner was paying more attention to their manga than her beloved superhero.

Orihime liked to imagine that she was Anpanman. She would tie one of her blankets around her neck and chase Shinji around the kitchen with a ladle. She pretended that Kensei was Uncle Jam and would demand a that he pretend to bake new head so that she could vanquish the villain, to which he would grudgingly agree while covertly rolling his eyes. One time, she had even broken into the cabinet and rubbed jelly all over her face and neck before Uncle Jam made her wash off and threw her in her room so he could make dinner in peace.

Still, raising a child took a lot of trial and error, as the vizard were coming to discover. This came to light one evening just before dinner when Orihime innocently walked up to Kensei as he was cooking soup. She stood and watched him deftly peel carrots for a moment before speaking.

"I wish your head was a red bean bun like Anpanman so I could eat it."

They unanimously decided to limit her television time after that.

 **6:28 p.m.**

"Eat it, Orihime."

Orihime sat stubbornly, her mouth in a tight line.

"I'm not sitting with you at this table forever, so hurry up and eat!"

Orihime alternated glares between Kensei and the steamed vegetables that lay innocently on her plate. She poked them with her chopsticks.

"They're too squishy!" she declared.

Kensei took a deep breath and scowled at the ceiling, as if wordlessly asking for a higher power to grant him the patience to deal with this obstinate five-year-old.

All of the vizard took turns taking care of Orihime. Even Hiyori would reluctantly agree to spend a few hours with her (though Shinji secretly thought most of the grumbling was just for show). But it had not taken long for Kensei to take on the majority of the responsibility for the child. After having to ban Lisa from lending the girl magazines and watching Orihime emulate Hiyori pick her nose (among many other bad habits), he grudgingly decided to take things into his own hands.

It was a decision that he questioned frequently, especially now as he was sitting across the table staring down a five-year-old with a stubborn streak that rivaled Hiyori's.

"You should have just given her red bean buns and swapped out the bean paste with vegetables. The way she inhales them, they'd be in her stomach by the time she noticed," offered Lisa.

"Don't say the 'R' word in front of her!" hissed Kensei.

"Bean buns! Bean buns!" Orihime began to chant, slamming her tiny fists on the table at the same time.

"See what you did?" The white-haired vizard gave an exasperated sigh, resting his head in his hands.

Shinji tried next. "Orihime, if you don't eat your vegetables, you'll be tiny forever. Just look at Hiyori."

"Say that to my face, Shinji!" Hiyori jumped up, ready for war.

It was Love who saved the day.

"Orihime, didn't I tell you? I bought those vegetables just for you. They were grown specially to give you superpowers just like Anpanman. If you finish everything, you'll be able to—"

Orihime's plate was empty in seconds, and Love was excused from dish duty.

 **Sunday**

 **1:13 a.m.**

Orihime was having a weird dream.

She had been taken hostage and imprisoned by giant vegetables, the very same that she had initially rejected at dinner with disgust, pushing the plate away from her and sticking her tongue out. They were trying to convince her to eat them, lecturing her about nutrition and how important they were for her health. Orihime noted with mild confusion that their voices sounded a lot like Kensei's. She wondered if she concentrated hard enough, she could turn them into red bean buns. It was _her_ dream, after all.

The cartoonish vegetables didn't change, but her focusing must have done some good, because all of a sudden Anpanman materialized and swooped in to rescue her, his red cape billowing regally as he landed. The vegetables popped out of existence and Anpanman moved to take off his head and offer part of it to Orihime to eat. She reached out her hands gratefully in acceptance. But when he removed his head, he was no longer Anpanman, he was somebody else, a man with long, dark hair and a friendly smile. Orihime recognized this man. He was the comforting man she had once known in a previous life, the one who used to sing to her to drown out the angry accusations and hurled insults barely muted by paper-thin walls.

Her vision lost some of its dream-like quality as the sound of raised voices began to swell in the background, filling her with a familiar terror and urge to hide. But the man was murmuring a lullaby in an attempt to soothe her and distract her from the upsetting noise.

The voices began to fade and Orihime's anxiety faded with it. She looked up at the singing man curiously, who smiled back reassuringly and continued his quiet lullaby. Orihime's eyelids began to droop against her will. The last thing she saw before her dream ended was the man's face, his smile bright, but his eyes filled with an aching sadness. Orihime wondered why he looked so distraught when she was right here and everything was as it should be.

The man's face vanished as Orihime regained consciousness.

It would not be the last time she dreamed of him.


	5. A New Injustice

A/N: Woot! Early update! Don't get used to it ;) Leave a review!

* * *

 **Tuesday**

 **8:14 a.m.**

Orihime's biggest life change occurred during breakfast one morning as she was fishing out the last few stubborn grains of rice stuck to the bottom of her bowl with her chopsticks.

Mashiro was trying to convince Kensei that they needed to go on another shopping trip for the quickly growing Orihime, to which he reluctantly agreed. The girl desperately needed new clothes after a sudden growth spurt, and Kensei had put it off as long as humanly possible.

"Aren't human children supposed to start going to school around her age?" Lisa mentioned offhandedly over her own rice bowl. "You can pick up her school clothes while you're out."

Kensei was struck speechless for the first time he could remember. It had been several years since he had attended the Soul Reaper Academy as an aspiring soul reaper and even longer since he'd been to a human school as a living being. He looked over thoughtfully at Orihime who had given up all attempt at etiquette, abandoning her chopsticks and picking up each grain of rice with her tiny fingers, chatting with them before happily popping them in her mouth.

"You sure she's ready to be around other humans yet?" Hiyori muttered, throwing Orihime a patronizing look that the younger girl didn't notice.

 **Thursday**

 **2:36 p.m.**

Kensei dumped Orihime's new clothes into a pile on the couch and collapsed next to it, rubbing his eyes. The white-haired vizard hated shopping. He found himself dragged on shopping expeditions more frequently now that Orihime was growing so quickly and he didn't really expect it to let up anytime soon.

Orihime began to dig through the pile excitedly, running her hands admiringly over the colorful garments she had picked out. She paused as she found an outfit she had definitely not chosen: a plain white shirt with a collar paired with a pleated blue skirt. She noticed there were a few others like it in the pile.

She scrunched her nose and looked at Kensei in confusion.

"I didn't pick these out!" she insisted. "These are Lisa's!"

He looked over at the outfit she was holding.

"That's your new school uniform," he explained. "You have to wear it when you start school next week."

Orihime looked back at the clothing and saw that they were indeed Orihime-sized and would not fit the much taller vizard. "What's school?" she asked.

"It's a place where kids go every day to learn."

Orihime couldn't imagine what more there was that she needed to learn that she didn't know already.

"Learn what?" she demanded.

"How to read and write, how to do math, how to—"

"Do we get to watch Anpanman there?" Orihime had her priorities in the right place.

"No."

Orihime threw down her new uniform in disgust. "School sounds dumb!" she shouted as she ran out of the room to find someone who would share in her horror at this new injustice.

 **2:48 p.m.**

So far, Orihime had failed to find a sympathetic audience.

"It'll be good for you," Shinji said lazily, cleaning out his ear with his pinky finger. "You'll meet other kids your age."

"You can learn how to play a musical instrument," Rose offered.

"And start reading manga," Love added from where he was absorbed in the newest copy of Shonen Jump.

"And I can start babysitting less," Hiyori complained.

Orihime decided to take her grievances elsewhere.

 **2:54 p.m.**

She found Lisa on the couch reading a magazine.

"Why do you wear clothes like my new school uniform? Is it because you have to go to school, too?"

Lisa looked up at the child over the rims of her glasses.

"I wear these clothes because they're stylish," she sniffed.

"Is it because you failed? If I fail, do I have to keep going to school too, even when I'm all old and wrinkly? What if I invent a robot that looks exactly like me and I send _her_ to school instead, and then I can stay at home and watch TV all day and then when she gets home she can just tell me everything she learned and then I'll invent a jet pack so she can—"

Lisa grabbed the still chattering Orihime around the waist and all but threw her out of the room.

 **2:57 p.m.**

Orihime lost no momentum and quickly sought out her last hope.

"What if when I go to school it turns out it's full of Orihimes just like me?" she fretted to Mashiro. "Like someone kidnapped me and made a copy of me when I was a baby and then they all grew up and went to the same school as me and they decide they have enough Orihimes already and don't like me."

Mashiro didn't react like Orihime expected. Instead, the green-haired vizard patted Orihime gently on the head and said calmly, "Orihime, you'll be the only you at the school. All of the other kids will be different and I'm sure you'll get along with them just fine."

Hachi watched the exchange silently from the background.

Mashiro continued. "And I bet a lot of them will be cute boys! And they'll bring you flowers and write you poetry and then you'll find out that one of them has a mysterious past and is actually a vampire in disguise! And then—"

Hachi stopped her before she could get too worked up.

"Mashiro, you need to stop reading so many weird romance novels."

 **3:42 p.m.**

"This is it, Orihime. Karakura Elementary—your new school," Rose announced that afternoon on the way to pick up ingredients for dinner.

They had gone slightly out of their way so that he could show her the tall building where she would start spending the majority of her time away from her family. Orihime still wasn't convinced that it wasn't a prison.

Holding tightly to Rose's hand, she peered around the entrance into the courtyard. School was already in session and had dismissed for the day, but Orihime could see a group of children kicking around a black and white ball with their feet, trying to keep it away from each other.

"They're playing soccer—it's a rather popular sport. It's something you can start playing too if you'd like."

Orihime observed the children warily for a few moments. As she watched, a girl with short, spiky black hair kicked the ball into a wide, rectangular enclosure sealed with a net. A boy in front of the enclosure tried to stop the ball with his foot, but stumbled and fell to the ground in tears. The girl shouted her victory, jumping up and down. Orihime watched as her team congratulated her, and her heart skipped a beat when their eyes met across the field.

Orihime tugged at Rose's hand to leave.

 **Sunday**

 **8:12 p.m.**

It was the night before the big day and Orihime had her new uniform hung up on a chair in her room. Kensei was standing by the door, about to turn out the lights.

"Are you going to make me breakfast tomorrow?" she asked, her mind already on her next meal.

"Alright," he said, after a moment. "What do you want?"

"Spaghetti!"

He regarded her silently, eyebrows raised.

"You're weird."


	6. You Can't Sit With Us

A/N: Another early update! Here's chapter six-because I couldn't not make a Mean Girls reference. Enjoy!

* * *

 **5 A.O. (After Orihime)**

 **Monday**

 **7:58 a.m.**

"Hurry, Orihime! You're going to make us late!" Tatsuki shouted from where she was waiting by the entrance, impatiently jogging in place.

"I'm coming!" she called back, and quickly waved goodbye to Love, who was still rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

The girls made it to their seats just as the bell rang and their teacher shut the door on the students unfortunate enough to be tardy.

"Thanks for waiting, Tatsuki," Orihime whispered to her friend sitting next to her.

"I only waited because I got there about a second before you did," the spiky-haired girl admitted, smirking back. "I'm not risking our teacher's wrath on your ability to be on time."

Orihime and Tatsuki had not been best friends since the moment they met. In fact, as Orihime entered her new classroom on her first day and laid eyes on the girl she recognized from the soccer field, she felt a surge of anxiety.

Tatsuki Arisawa was tough, and she meant business. She was a member of almost every sports club the school offered, and she excelled at all of them. She was the girl who would knock you down on her way to the soccer goal, whether you were on her team or not. She was the girl who would single-handedly take down all the boys in karate and ask who was next.

Tatsuki was sharp edges where Orihime was soft curves. Orihime was polite and sensitive by nature and didn't know what to make of this brusque, tomboyish schoolgirl. Many of the other students looked at Tatsuki with some degree of fearful respect, and Orihime was one of them. The two couldn't have been more different.

Likewise, Tatsuki looked at the new girl with disinterest. She had the girl pegged as soon as she bowed and shyly introduced herself to the class.

Instead, Orihime gravitated to some of the other girls in her class, ones who were more similar in temperament to her. It was with these girls that Orihime ate lunch with and shared crayons with during arts and crafts.

One day when Orihime sat down next to them at lunch, though, she could sense a tension in the group. She tried to make pleasant conversation, not knowing what else to do. One of the girls spoke suddenly, cutting her off.

"Why is your hair so _orange_?"

Orihime had stared at her, unsure of how to answer.

"I mean, it's such a weird color. Did you dye it?"

"Erm… no. It's always been this color."

"I think you're lying," the girl contradicted rudely. "And if you want to sit with us anymore, you have to dye it black. Or cut it. There's no room for someone with hair like yours in this group."

The girl's name was Miki and she had long, silky black hair that her mother braided for her every morning. If their group had a leader, it would have been her.

Orihime gaped at her, her eyes starting to well up with tears. She loved her hair. Mashiro and Lisa would take turns each morning brushing it, running their fingers through the soft, orange strands. Orihime had let it grow long, and it reached almost to her waist. Now Orihime found herself forced into the terrible situation of choosing between her new friends and her beloved hair. She looked for help from the other girls and found none.

"Well? We're waiting?!" Miki looked at Orihime impatiently. She leaned forward and tugged harshly on one of Orihime's locks. "Are you going to get rid of this or are you going to find new friends?!"

"Oww, that hurts!"

"What do you think you're doing?!"

Miki let go of Orihime's hair, startled. Tatsuki was standing behind Orihime, arms crossed, looking ready to fight.

"This doesn't concern someone like you, Arisawa," Miki sneered. "This is a conversation between actual _girls_."

"It doesn't look like much of a conversation to me," Tatsuki replied coolly. "It just looks to me like you're ganging up on the new girl."

"People have to fit in!" Miki shouted heatedly. She was standing in front of Tatsuki now, who felt a twinge of satisfaction that she was still half an inch taller. "Not that you would know anything about that. Freak."

"Who do you want me to fit in with, you? A bunch of sissies who feel like they have the right to tell everyone what to do? Don't kid yourself!"

She had uttered these last words as she leaned forward and pushed Miki to the ground, who immediately began to cry.

"You don't have the right to tell anyone who to be! No one has to listen to you!"

Orihime wondered if there was history there, if Tatsuki had once been friends with the girls and been cast aside and ostracized, just as Orihime was about to be. Just as she began to wonder if she was being saved and should feel grateful, Tatsuki had turned on her as well.

"And you! Don't just sit there and let them walk all over you! Stand up for yourself!" Orihime stared at her, dumbstruck.

Tatsuki was taken to the principal's office for fighting, and Orihime finished her lunch alone. When she came back during crafts after a stern talking-to looking not the least bit contrite, Orihime walked up to her.

"I _can_ stand up for myself. I choose to not be friends with those girls anymore and to not cut my hair. Now are you going to sit next to me and share crayons or not?"

Tatsuki had simply raised her eyebrows and stared for a moment, then nodded as a slow grin crept across her face.

The inner turmoil Orihime had felt since Miki's ultimatum vanished with that smile. For a brief moment, those girls had made Orihime question what was most important to her, because she knew they were asking her to sacrifice more than just her hair.

That wouldn't happen again, Orihime had resolved, glancing at her new friend sitting beside her. With Tatsuki next to her, she could take on the world.

 **3:00 p.m.**

After the bell rang, Orihime and Tatsuki walked out together. It was one of the rare times Tatsuki did not have to stay after school for soccer practice, karate practice, or any other sport that Orihime had lost track of.

"You know, you never told me who that person is that always waits for you. Is he your dad?"

Orihime followed Tatsuki's gaze to where Kensei was waiting near the entrance, his arms crossed.

"Err, more like an older brother."

"He looks so serious," Tatsuki remarked, trying and failing to imitate the vizard's serious, unsmiling face. She gave up and grinned at her friend.

"That's just how he is," Orihime explained, smiling back. "My other… brothers and sisters make up for it."

"Oh right. Like the guy that was with you this morning."

"Uh huh."

Tatsuki did not press more than that. She had been Orihime's best friend for almost two years and had never formally met her siblings, never been invited over for a birthday party or sleepover. Orihime was very guarded about her family and Tatsuki wasn't a snoop. If Orihime wanted to tell her something, she would tell her.

The only thing Tatsuki knew about Orihime was that she had several brothers and sisters—she had seen them take turns dropping her off on mornings that they got to school at the same time. However, the extreme diversity in their physical appearances made her suspect that they weren't actually related. Tatsuki knew that Orihime took her last name from the white-haired man who was waiting for her at the entrance.

Orihime watched as Tatsuki took off sprinting to her home just around the corner, shouting a goodbye over her shoulder. She had nothing to tell Tatsuki about her family or where she came from, and silently willed her friend to understand.

For some inexplicable reason, she was afraid to ask.


	7. Ghost Stories

A/N: Happy Friday! Leave a review :)

* * *

 **Tuesday**

 **8:05 a.m.**

Orihime's teacher had just finished calling roll, the irritation evident in her voice as she took note of how many students were absent. She assumed that many of the parents had pulled their children out to take an early vacation and she was not wrong about several of them.

She was wrong about the boy who showed up just before lunch, though, holding a white slip that he clutched in his hand like a lifeline. The teacher took it from him tentatively, frowning as she read. As she looked up in surprise and concern, the boy was already at his desk, head buried in his arms, leaving only his orange hair visible.

Orihime caught a glimpse of his face as she passed him in the hallway on her way to the bathroom.

The expression that he wore was too old for his face. It was the expression of a boy whose life was crumbling to pieces around him.

 **11:44 a.m.**

"I heard that she was _murdered._ "

"No way. I heard that she drowned in the river."

"Which one is he again?"

"The Kurosaki kid? How could you not know who that is? He's the one with orange hair!"

Orihime could hear snippets of speculative conversation as she played catch with Tatsuki and Michiru during recess.

"What are they talking about?" she asked her friend as she narrowly caught the ball that Tatsuki pitched to her. Her hand stung a little bit—that girl threw hard.

"They're talking about Ichigo Kurosaki. You know, the boy in our class that's been absent for a while. His mom just died. He's been gone for the funeral."

An image of the orange-haired boy's face flashed in her mind, his haunted eyes passing over her as she walked by him in the hallway. Orihime knew who very well who he was.

This was the first year Ichigo had been in her class, but she had noticed him before. You couldn't just ignore orange in a sea of black. Orihime had always felt a connection with him, and not just because of their similar hair color. She could feel that there was something that set them apart, something that made them different from all the other students at school. She wondered if he could feel it, too.

Michiru gasped sympathetically. She was a kind, gentle girl, just like Orihime, and had joined their group just recently.

"How terrible!" she exclaimed. "How did it happen?"

Tatsuki was friends with Ichigo outside of school and was therefore the one most likely to be able to sort out the truth from the speculations. She answered, serious for once.

"No one knows. Ichigo was with her when it happened. One moment she was there, and the next moment she was lying by the riverbank. If it was murder, Ichigo never saw anyone."

Orihime and Michiru had moved closer to hear, their earlier game of catch abandoned.

"Maybe it was ghosts!"

The girls spun around. It was the three boys from earlier whose murmured conversation Orihime had overheard. None of the boys were in their class, and Orihime knew none of their names. But apparently Tatsuki did.

"Shut your mouth, Taro! Don't make fun of someone whose mom just died!"

The boy Taro just raised his eyebrows. "What? Isn't he the kid who said he could see ghosts?" His voice dropped. "You just said they didn't find the murderer, if that's what it was. What if it was a ghost and that Kurosaki kid is just afraid to say it?"

"Come off it, Taro," one of his friends said, lightly punching his arm. "You don't actually believe in all that ghost nonsense still, do you?"

They were at an age where they were young enough to believe in ghosts, but too old to be able to admit it.

"Listen," Taro said seriously, an urgent tone to his voice. "This is just like what happened five years ago to a family in town. They were murdered, too. By ghosts."

He uttered the last two words dramatically, clearly expecting a reaction from his listeners, and he was not disappointed.

Michiru clutched Orihime's arm nervously. "What happened?"

"My dad told me all about it. A family moved in from out of town five years ago to a neighborhood not far from here. My family used to live near there—that's how he knows. Here was there when it happened."

The listeners stared at him, waiting for him to continue. He was obviously enjoying the attention.

He went on. "They were strange people, and didn't really talk much to anyone. They mostly just kept to themselves and people often saw them coming and going at weird hours. Then, several days went by without anyone seeing them. They had two kids who would sometimes play in the yard, but no one had seen them in a while either."

He paused for a moment for dramatic effect.

"One day, one of the neighbors went over to their house to knock on their door and see if they were alright. No one answered, but the door was unlocked, so she went in. That's when she found them."

Taro stopped, taking in the rapt faces of his captivated audience.

"Found who?" Orihime urged. Michiru was still clutching her arm.

"The bodies of the family. The mom, dad, and older brother were lying on the floor. They were covered in blood. The neighbor, who was a nosy old lady who lived next door, ran away screaming and called the police. My dad was there when they came to investigate, and he said that he overheard some of the police saying that none of the bodies showed any gun or knife wounds. Instead, the family looked like they had been mauled by some kind of giant animal."

"Animal? What kind of animal?" Michiru asked, trembling.

"No one knows," Taro continued. "They never found any traces of fur or anything. Just a few scratches on the floor. But the zoo never reported that any animals were missing, so what else could it have been if not giant evil ghost spirits?" he concluded matter-of-factly.

Orihime and Tatsuki exchanged glances.

"Hold on," Tatsuki said after a moment. "I thought you said the family had two kids? But you just said they only found the body of one."

Taro looked as if he had been waiting for someone to ask this exact question. He answered with obvious relish, lowering his voice again.

"That just the thing. There were four people in the family: two parents and two kids. But only the parents and the older brother were found. What happened to the little girl?"

The spectators waited expectantly.

"They say the little girl hid during the attack and still lives there in that house with the spirits of her dead family. Any time anyone comes near it, something bad happens to them. People try to move in, but they always end up leaving in a hurry. They tried to demolish the house, but the equipment always breaks down. One by one the neighbors started moving out, too. Hardly anyone lives in that neighborhood anymore."

The listeners shivered as if a sudden chill had passed through them.

"Well, good thing you don't believe in ghost stories," Taro said cheerfully and the spell was broken. The bell rang to end recess and he ran back towards the building, his two friends following close behind.

"Did you believe him, Tatsuki?" Michiru asked, still frightened from the story.

"Hah! What a bunch of boloney. Only sissies believe ghost stories," Tatsuki boasted, grinning.

"Then what do you think actually happened to the family?" Michiru countered.

"I dunno. Wanna go check out the house?" Tatsuki suggested with a wink.

"No way!"

The two girls raced towards the door while Orihime lagged behind, still pondering the story. After school, Orihime cornered Taro and asked him one last question.

"About the story you told us today. What was the name of the family?"

Taro scratched his head, trying to remember. Orihime had to lean in close to hear him over the excited shouts and pounding feet of schoolchildren rushing past them, racing towards the doors. "Uhhh, let me think. It's been so long since my dad told me that story. I can't really remember."

Orihime began to walk away, disappointed. She joined the stream of students heading outside, her left hand shielding her eyes against the sudden brightness as she searched for the person she knew would be waiting to walk her home. Taro caught up to her just as she caught sight of Kensei waiting in his usual spot.

"Inoue. The family's name was Inoue."

 **4:13 p.m.**

"Do you believe in ghosts?" Orihime asked Shinji that afternoon. They were sitting on the couch, Shinji playing video games while she leafed through the newest copy of Shonen Jump.

"Nope," Shinji said.

"Really? Not even the least bit?" Orihime was skeptical. She figured if anyone was superstitious, it would be Shinji.

"Nah. Never seen one," he lied.

"Oh really?" Lisa asked, unimpressed. "So you're saying it's not ghosts that are stealing my magazines?"

"Wouldn't know anything about that," he replied unconvincingly, scratching his neck. Shinji swore he could feel the heat of Lisa's glare on the back of his head.

"Besides," he continued, "there are much scarier things out there than ghosts." His hand hid his mouth as he whispered conspiratorially, "Like Hiyori."

Orihime swore she heard something break in the next room as Shinji flinched and muttered something about supersonic hearing.

"Where do people go when they die?" she asked again after a few more minutes of reading.

"Dunno," Shinji answered. "Wanna play me?"

Orihime hid the thick magazine behind a pillow and grabbed a controller. Just that moment Love raced into the room, visibly distraught.

"Has anyone seen my copy of Shonen Jump? I just bought it today!"

"Nope," she answered, flicking her controls to knock Shinji's character off the screen.


	8. Nightmares Part 1

A/N: A new chapter to get you through the Monday blues. I've loved reading everyone's reviews so far! Keep it up :)

* * *

 **6 A.O. (After Orihime)**

 **Wednesday**

 **4:15 p.m.**

 _The concept of ghosts dates back thousands of years, each culture having its own particular views about the manifestation of these spirits. The Ancient Egyptians are one of the oldest cultures with written record of their beliefs in the form of hieroglyphs (see glossary: pg. 37) in which the soul of a deceased person would travel to the netherworld and continue a way of life similar to that of the living. Relatives made offerings to these spirits to provide comfort and prevent incurring the wrath of the recently deceased._

Orihime looked on the opposite page, briefly examining the simple illustration that depicted the outline of a bird. She thumbed forward a few pages and began to read the text under the heading _What is a Ghost?_

 _Many believe that a ghost is the soul or spirit of a deceased human or animal that rejects or is unable to accept death, and lingers behind in the physical world, sometimes appearing to living humans. It is a common belief that ghosts are tied to the earth because they suffered a violent or tragic event, harbor regret or resentment, or have business they were unable to complete during life._

The opposite picture featured a creepy depiction of what Orihime assumed was supposed to be a ghost. She covered that page with another book so she wouldn't have to look at it, then picked up her pencil and rested the eraser on her cheek as she thought.

"Still working on your research project, Orihime?" Love asked, appearing suddenly over her shoulder.

"Yep," Orihime replied, beginning to write. Her pencil made a squeaking noise as she moved it deliberately and carefully across the page.

Orihime's teacher's announcement that she would be assigning research projects was met with a collective groan from the class. She saw Tatsuki slump in her seat in disappointment in front of her, but Orihime stayed sitting up straight in her chair. She loved writing, especially if she got to choose what it was about.

She did. Orihime had drawn the straw for number three, and was therefore the third person to sign up for a topic. She carefully wrote down "ghosts" in the slot next to her name. She was not surprised to see "ninjas" as the first pick and "samurais" as a close second. She happily dragged Kensei to the public library to check out several books on ghosts and begin her research.

In truth, Orihime's obsession with the supernatural had begun long before Taro had told her, Tatsuki, and Michiro the infamous story that one afternoon during lunch. It was the only thing she wanted to read about, and frequently borrowed (without permission) Love's Shonen Jump to read a popular manga about a boy who could see ghosts. She was becoming a faster reader, and most times she could borrow the thick magazine and put it back before Love was even aware that it was gone.

Kensei wasn't sure whether or not to be concerned with the sudden intensity of her interest, but didn't forbid her from reading about it. He did forbid horror movies though, to Orihime's disappointment, and she was caught and forcibly taken back to her room after sneaking out to peek at the scary movie Love and Shinji were watching one night after her bedtime.

But Orihime did not scare easy, a fact that she prided herself on.

At least, that's what she told herself as she jumped six feet in the air and screamed at the top of her lungs as Shinji jumped out at her from behind a corner, making her spill her tea all over his shirt.

 **Friday**

 **8:37 p.m.**

"And they say that one day, the angry robot ghost will return to earth and destroy the world with his laser eyes. The end."

Shinji finished his story dramatically from where he was crouched underneath a blanket, flashlight held beaming under his chin to cast severe shadows across his angular face.

It was a rainy night, and Orihime had begged her family to let her stay up late and tell ghost stories. She had even gotten Kensei to join the circle, though he looked unhappy about it. Then again, Orihime mused, that was his normal face.

"Here, I've got one," Lisa announced. "Pass me the flashlight."

He did, and she held it up so that the light cast deep shadows on her face just as it had on Shinji's.

"This is a true story," Lisa began in a voice so low that they had to lean in to hear. "I know it is, because it happened to me."

"It was a dark and rainy night, just like this one," she began. "I had just finished doing some exercises in my room and grabbed some clothes to take with me to the shower. It was late, and I didn't want to wake anyone, so I kept the lights off and tried my best to manage my way through the pitch black hallway."

She paused and adjusted the flashlight.

"When I got outside the bathroom, I heard a strange noise, so I cracked open the door and peered in. I couldn't see anything in the darkness, so I flicked on the lights and what I saw will haunt me in my nightmares until the end of time. It was Shinji naked, coming out of the shower!"

She shone the light in Shinji's face as she dramatically announced her last sentence.

"That was you?!" he exclaimed, squinting at the sudden blinding light.

"I ran back to my room and decided a bath could wait until morning." Lisa ended her story.

"Geez, Lisa, I know the girl wanted to hear scary stories, but don't you think that was a little _too_ frightening?" Hiyori asked from where she was reclined just outside the circle. Orihime could hear the smirk in her voice.

"You're right, Hiyori. Sorry, Orihime, I hope you don't have nightmares tonight."

"Seriously…" Shinji muttered, rolling his eyes.

"It's what you get for taking a shower in the dark and scaring a girl half to death," Lisa sniffed. "Who's next?"

"My turn now!" Orhime answered, reaching for the flashlight. Lisa rolled it to her and she grabbed it.

"Alright," she began. "I heard this story from a friend of a friend, so that means it's true."

She flicked on the flashlight and appraised her family, making sure they were paying attention. Hachi, who easily took up a fourth of the circle himself, looked curious. Hiyori looked bored.

"One time, five years ago in a neighborhood not far from here…"

The vizard listened to Orihime's tale in growing alarm, exchanging troubled glances that their young ward didn't notice. After Orihime had finished, Kensei announced that scary story time was over and it was time for bed. He took the child to her room despite her protests, bidding her a stern goodnight as he flicked off the lights and shut the door.

Orihime cocooned herself in her blankets, and drifted off contentedly to sleep, unaware that she had just finished telling her own story.

 **2:05 a.m.**

Perhaps, Orihime thought, she shouldn't have insisted that everyone tell scary stories right before bed.

She dreamed that she was walking down a long, narrow corridor, the darkness so thick that she had to keep a hand on the wall to help guide her way. The more she walked, the narrower the hallway became, to the point that she had to crawl to keep her head from scraping the low ceiling.

After a few minutes of crawling, she bumped into the end of the tunnel. She felt with her hands the wall that she had just run into and her fingers found a slender doorknob, the metal cold to touch. She turned it, pushing the door open and creeping forward.

After she had crawled through, she stood up and looked around. The room was dim, but the weak lights seemed bright compared to the ink black tunnel she had just emerged from. Orihime went to sit on the little bed in the corner, knowing what to expect. This was the place where all of her dreams ended.

Sure enough, the familiar commotion began to swell in the next room, barely muted by the paper-thin walls. But this time Orihime was not alarmed. She looked to her right and sure enough, the familiar man was there, ready with his comforting lullaby. Orihime relaxed into it.

The song was barely loud enough to mask the sound of distant arguing, which was getting steadily louder and closer. The man's humming became louder, too, to match the voices. But there was a desperate tone in his song that frightened Orihime more than it comforted her. She could feel a terrible sense of foreboding and wanted nothing more than to leave.

Then, without warning, Orihime's dream twisted into a nightmare.

The man's once gentle song, becoming steadily more anxious and unsettling, suddenly erupted into horrific screeching. Orihime wanted to scream too, as well as cry, but could neither move nor make a sound. The man writhed in agony as a milky white substance burst forth from his eyes and mouth, congealing onto his skin in a bleach colored mask. The arguing that had been in the background had turned into shrieking, and Orihime knew she was not the only one affected by this new terror.

The monster looked at her through crimson pupils ablaze with a voracious hunger that threatened to consume her. The anguish and horror that Orihime felt at this sudden turn of events threatened to shatter her tiny eight-year-old body into pieces.

The last thing she observed before the creature lunged at her were those eyes, sallow and sunken in its skull, the intensity of its hunger matched by an aching sadness that begged for release. Orihime wished she could give it to him.

 **2:27 a.m.**

Orihime awakened to a pounding heart and sheen of sweat that covered her tiny frame. She could hear Mashiro's muffled snores through the wall and Orihime half expected the violent drumming of her heart to wake up her easily excitable family member. It did not.

She could not avoid thinking about her dream. While she did not remember every minute detail, the emotions were still fresh and raw and powerful, and their intensity frightened her. Orihime was still cowering at what she had experienced.

Her heart slowed as she remembered the sadness and desperation of the man who had tried to comfort her, a kind of grief she had seen mirrored once before in the eyes of an orange-haired boy. She wondered if he had known that beast had been inside of him before it tore its way to the surface. While his appearance had terrified her, she knew that the man was buried somewhere deep inside and needed to be saved.

And Orihime intended to save him.

She slipped out of bed, the rain beating down on the roof reminding her to put on her yellow rubber boots. She remembered the days where she would have donned her Anpanman cloak, but she grabbed her rain jacket instead. Even if she had not been too old, she realized that this was a mission she would complete as Orihime, and not as her imaginary superhero.

She crept down the hall as quickly and quietly as she could manage. When she came to the front door, she opened it a crack and slipped under it.

When she emerged on the other side and righted herself, she stopped in her tracks. Before her was not the empty street and rundown buildings she could see when she peeked through the shattered windows of the warehouse. In front of her was a wall of light—a soft, creamy yellowish orange that reminded her of melted butter on pancakes that Love placed in front of her for breakfast on special mornings. It was lovely and it was strange, but also familiar at the same time. She reached out a diminutive hand and lightly brushed the glowing barrier with her fingers.

When her fingers did not meet resistance, she pushed them further still, through the glow. Soon her hand was on the other side of the wall, and she was admiring the golden hue the extremity took through the filter of the pale light. The rest of her body followed, her barrettes shimmering and reflecting the soft glow as it passed through. When she was completely through the barrier, she turned back. The wall of light was gone from view, along with the warehouse she lived in. Even so, she could somehow sense that it was there, and she trusted herself to find it again when she returned.

She turned back around, pulling on her hood as she did so, and slipped out into the night.


	9. Nightmares Part 2

**2:30 a.m.**

Something was different, and Hachi could sense it.

He had been sound asleep just a few moments ago, dreaming pleasantly, until a strange sensation ghosted at the edge of his subconscious, like fingertips gliding lightly over skin.

Hachi was a master of kido. In his previous life as lieutenant of the Kido Corps, he had been well-renowned for his mystic abilities. He could perform the highest level kido with only a thought, so much was it a part of his being.

Few soul reapers truly understood kido. Even the ones who could use it skillfully did not fully trust it, choosing rather to use their blades than a force that, to them, might as well have been magic. It was not so with Hachi. To him, kido was a way of life, an extension of his body. A way of interacting with the world.

There were only two others besides himself that Hachi would extend the same regard to as a fellow kido specialist: his former captain and teacher, Tensai, and perhaps the gentle, young woman who was now acting as lieutenant to the despised soul reaper traitor, Aizen.

Hachi's rejection from the Soul Society and new hollow powers that had been forced upon him had not weakened his connection to kido, but strengthened it. Before he built this life for himself in the world of the living, he had already been a master of defensive kido, of creating and maintaining barriers.

That was how he knew the exact moment that little Orihime slipped through the barrier he had erected outside their home at Shinji's request. That was how he knew exactly how significant it was that she was capable of doing this, when no human, let alone soul reaper, vizard, or hollow, should have been able to.

He had a lot to learn about this little human girl. That is, as soon as he could find her and bring her safely back home.

 **2:54 a.m.**

Orihime's legs had brought her far. She was already out of familiar territory, further than she remembered traveling with Mashiro or Kensei on one of their shopping trips or expeditions to bring back food. Further even than she went for school. Her legs didn't know where they were taking her, but something else inside her did. Orihime knew it was the same power that allowed her to detect where the warehouse was hidden, and she trusted its sense of direction.

She continued along the dark streets, staying as close to the buildings as possible. Orihime did not see any other people, and she did not want to encounter any. Any other child Orihime's age would have been terrified at being out at such a late hour, even with the comforting presence of parents nearby. But Orihime had a purpose, and that gave her courage.

The sensation was getting stronger with each step, the feeling of anticipation building up in her chest. She quickened her pace and turned the corner, certain that that was where she would find what she was looking for.

What she found was another row of houses, the street just as deserted as the last. Even the homes looked uninhabited—several of the yards were overgrown, the grass almost reaching her waist and the weeds poking up through the cracks in the concrete. Though all of the houses looked abandoned, there was one house that stood out from the rest in terms of neglect and disrepair. This was the house that Orihime knew she was being led to.

What Orihime did _not_ know, however, but was beginning to suspect, was that this house had a peculiar and violent history. Five years ago, a middle-aged couple had bought the house and moved in from out of town, bringing their teenaged son and infant daughter with them. The family had only occupied the house for a few days before they were mysteriously and brutally murdered.

 _By ghosts_ , she heard Taro whisper in her head.

But Orihime had no way of knowing for sure that this house was the same one she had been told about. She had no way of knowing if any of the things Taro had told her that day were true.

Besides, Orihime told herself, she was too old to believe in ghost stories.

She willed herself to take a step further, and then a step after that, until she was standing in front of the tiny metal gate. It looked like it had been delicately wrought, the arch fashioned to look like ivy entwined with tiny roses, and Orihime could imagine that at one point it had been quite lovely. But now, parts of it had crumbled or been torn off, and rust grew in the wounds. It, along with the house it guarded, truly looked like it belonged to a family of ghosts.

Orihime pushed it forward easily—it was unlatched. She followed the walkway up to the house, passing a weathered looking "For Sale" sign protruding out of the overgrown lawn.

She gently placed her foot on the lowest step leading up to the front door, expecting it to creak. But it kept its silence and she took another step until she was standing in front of the door.

 _This is it,_ Orihime thought _. This is the last chance I have to turn around._ She could easily picture herself cocooned in her bed in the safety of her room with her family just down the hall.

But she reached out and lightly pressed against the door. It was unlatched, just as the gate had been, and swung open easily.

Orihime stepped inside, expecting to see bloodstains on the floor and deep gashes in the wall. She saw none of this, no signs of any kind of scuffle. The house looked as if it had been well taken care of before it had been abandoned. Dust covered every surface in sight—there was no way anyone had entered the house in several years. Orihime was tempted to call out but decided against it.

The glare from the streetlight extended into the entranceway, but Orihime pulled out the flashlight she had grabbed just before she left, congratulating herself on her good sense. Looking at it reminded her of her family sitting in a circle telling stories. She had thought about waking them just before she left, but knew they would never have let her go. Flashlight gripped tightly in her hands, she headed up the stairs.

She went in the first room she saw, where the door was flung wide open. The room was bare except for a few basic furnishings—a bed, desk, and bookshelf. There were few personal artifacts in the room—a few books on the bookshelf, a button-up shirt strewn over the headboard. Orihime looked around the room curiously, trying to shake the feeling that she had been in here before. She decided to leave and look in the next room.

The door to the next room was shut and Orihime opened it carefully and stepped in, looking around. Based on the crib pushed up against the corner, she guessed that whoever lived here last must have had a baby. She wondered what had happened to it. If this truly was the house that Taro mentioned, then the little infant girl had gone missing and could still be alive.

No, Orihime thought. If half of what Taro had said was true, there should have been some evidence of an altercation, some sign of a fight—and she had found none. This was a normal house, and had probably had just been abandoned for a better home. There was nothing strange about it, she told herself, almost believing it. Her senses had led her here, but now they were being frustratingly silent and she wanted nothing more than to go home. Orihime turned to exit the room, inwardly scolding herself for thinking she would find something here.

The door slammed in her face.

 **3:01 a.m.**

It was three in the morning, it was raining, and Jiro wanted to go home.

He was working at a convenience store, just a mile down the road from where a little girl was exploring an old abandoned house by herself. She had passed the store on her way, but Jiro hadn't noticed. Even if he had looked up from the magazine he was lazily flipping through, he wouldn't have been able to see her through the thick downpour.

He sighed, bored. He hadn't had any customers for the last hour and a half. And even they had been dull, refusing to respond to his friendly attempts at conversation in an effort to keep the monotony of working the nightshift at bay. He almost welcomed the rowdier customers then—as long as they weren't _too_ rowdy—because their liveliness brought at least a little bit of energy to the store.

He flipped another page. Just like with the girl, even if he had looked up at that moment, he wouldn't have seen the dark silhouettes flitting by so fast, it was as if they were flying. He wouldn't have seen that all the shapes—eight of them, in fact—were carrying swords, and that one of them was as big as at least four grown men put together while another was only slightly bigger than the girl he hadn't noticed earlier.

Instead, he turned to the next page, sighing. It was going to be such a boring night.


	10. Nightmares Part 3

A/N: New chapter! Sadly, this will be the last one for a little while. I am moving and starting a new job at the end of this week, so I have to get back to adulting. Updates will still be coming, they will just be a little slower. But I am really excited to continue writing this, so I will do my best. Hopefully this chapter wraps up the arc in a way that is somewhat satisfying and can tide you over until the next one. Thanks for reading and thanks to everyone leaving such kind reviews!

* * *

 **3:03 a.m.**

Orihime froze.

The light from her flashlight was trained on the door. If she could move, she would have tried the handle.

Instead, she stood quietly, trying to hear over the sudden palpitations her heart was having. She imagined she could hear deep, irregular breathing coming from over her shoulder. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, then spun around and shone the flashlight behind where she had been standing. She didn't see anything that hadn't already been there.

That did not comfort her.

Her eyes searched the room carefully, and were drawn to a sudden movement by the dresser at her right. A picture frame, so thick with dust that Orihime wouldn't have been able to make out the faces for the life of her, fell to the ground as if knocked off by someone passing by.

Then, so did she.

Orihime felt something slam her to the floor and hold her there. She felt a sudden, strange release and then she was flying across the room to meet the other wall forcefully with her shoulder. Her shoulder throbbed with pain and she was confused to find that her body felt much heavier than it had a moment ago, not to mention she was suddenly having trouble breathing. She looked up, searching for the force that threw her.

In that moment, her mind registered two terrifying details. One: she could see her body lying on the other side of the room, long orange hair covering her face. Two: there was a giant, horrifying monster towering above her, leering at her. She wasn't sure which fact was more disturbing, though she opted for the latter.

The creature loomed above her, enormous and monstrous and grotesque. It stared at her silently, giving her a moment to take in its horrifying form. Its face was covered by a giant, milky white mask that stretched taller than her. Its eyes, one as big as both of Orihime's fists put together, featured red pupils outlined in black. The teeth were massive, and though they weren't sharp, Orihime had no doubt they would have no trouble tearing her to pieces. Lank, black hair hung lifeless about its face.

Orihime's eyes moved to its body. It was an alternating red and grey, a perfect hole in the middle of its center as if taken out by a massive hole punch. It had two long powerful arms, but its body tapered into a tail, like a snake.

Orihime instantly recognized the creature from her dream, the fear she had felt then now multiplied tenfold. She wondered if that man had really transformed into this, if her dream had gotten that right, too. Even if it was, she was beyond insane to ever think that she could do something for him. What could she, a tiny eight-year-old girl, who wasn't convinced she wasn't already dead, do to stop this massive beast? Her senses, no longer silent, were screaming at her to _get out_. But the monster, taking up almost the whole room, was blocking her only escape route.

The monster grabbed her and slammed her against the wall, holding her there.

"So you finally came to see me, Orihime," it rasped.

Orihime couldn't decide which emotion was strongest: shock that it was capable of speech, or terror that it knew her name.

"How—how do you know who I am?" Orihime managed to gasp.

The creature's mouth seemed to turn up slightly as if in amusement.

"How could I not know who you are? I, who took care of you at the beginning of your life? I, who protected you from your own parents, who would try to harm you? I, who have been calling you for years to bring you here?"

Orihime grasped at the only information she could understand.

"All those dreams—that was you?"

The creature said nothing, and she took that as affirmation.

"But you—I saw a human in all of my dreams." She thought back to the most recent dream and the transformation she had witnessed. "So that was you trying to tell me what had happened."

"Yes."

The creature lowered her back to the ground and she fell into a sitting position, still too overwhelmed to stand.

"But who were you? How did I know you?"

The creature pointed at her with one long, giant finger.

"You are my younger sister! We both had the misfortune to be born to parents more monstrous than I am now. People so evil that they would try to quiet their own baby's cries with beatings instead of lullabies. I endured mistreatment at their hands for fifteen years, and I was determined that my sister would not suffer the same. So when they would scream and cry and argue, I would take you and comfort you myself."

Orihime simply stared in disbelief.

"Look for yourself," the creature said, indicating to the picture frame that had fallen on the ground.

Eyeing the creature warily, Orihime crawled the short distance to the picture frame, which was miraculously unbroken. She picked it up, brushing off most of the dust with her hand and blowing off the rest.

She examined the picture. There were four people in the photo, but Orihime only had eyes for two of them. The teenaged boy with long, dark hair that fell about his eyes, and the infant girl, no older than two, that he was holding in his arms.

"You were the one who sang to me," Orihime whispered. "The dreams…"

"Yes."

There was no doubt that the man in the picture was the one who had occupied her dreams for as long as she could remember. And if he was speaking honestly, she was the child he was holding.

"What _happened_ to you?"

The question caused him obvious anguish and he thrashed his tail on the ground, shaking the room.

" _You_ happened! You brought the hollows here and they devoured us. I have lived the last six years of my existence in agony, filled with an emptiness I could not satisfy and a hunger I could not satiate while you ran free!"

He pointed an accusing finger at her and Orihime shrank back at his sudden anger.

"How…how could this have been—"

"This is all your fault! And when I finally found you, I couldn't get near you with all those…those _soul reapers_ always watching you, always so _aware_ of you. So that's why I brought you here, so we could finally be together."

Orihime didn't fully understand what he was talking about, but she didn't like the direction the conversation was turning.

"Be together?" she whispered, uncomprehending.

"Oh, yes. After all these years of feeling so _hollow_ I can finally slake the emptiness. This is the only way, you know."

"What's the only way?" she asked nervously, dreading the answer.

He grabbed her again and lifted her close to his face, his grip tighter this time. "I'm glad you finally found me, Orihime," the creature said, and as his jaws opened, Orihime knew the rest of the nightmare was about to play out in real life.

She didn't hear the shattering of glass over the roaring in her head, but suddenly the creature writhed in agony and she was released, landing in someone's arms.

The edge of her vision turned red as blood spurted in all directions, covering the walls and ceiling. Orihime could hear nothing over the creature's cries of pain and anger. She looked over and was startled to see Lisa of all people crouching next to the bookshelf, holding a bloodstained sword, eyeing the creature coldly.

And then Hiyori was there too, leaping off said bookshelf and slicing through the creature's mask with such force that it split neatly in two and began to evaporate, the monster's eyes turning to look at Orihime in accusation and resignation.

And then it was gone.

"And the others?" the one holding her asked. It was Kensei.

"Taking care of the rest." Lisa answered.

Orihime looked up at him and he nodded, not meeting her eye.

"Kensei…"

"We'll talk about this later," he said brusquely, cutting her short.

"Her body's over there," Hiyori indicated, then jumped on the windowsill. She gave the girl a glance that Orihime could only interpret as regret, and then disappeared.

Kensei carried Orihime over to where her other body was and—as she just realized—connected by a thin metal chain. She reached out to grab it, but Kensei swatted her hand away. He lowered her to the ground as he kneeled, and gently placed her on top of her body. Orihime felt a rushing sensation, as if she were at the bottom of the ocean and ascending quickly towards the surface. Then she opened her eyes and she was looking up at Kensei from where she lay on the ground.

She didn't ask what had just happened, and he didn't offer an explanation. There was always a later, a tomorrow.

Heroes were real, Orihime learned, and they didn't wear capes. Some of them had silver hair and eyebrow piercings and others had blonde pigtails and bad tempers. And while Hiyori may have been the one to kill the beast, Kensei had been the one to carry her home.

The last thing she thought before she fell asleep was that she had never asked her brother his name.


	11. Unspoken Apologies

A/N: YES! I'm back! After three weeks of waiting in agony, I finally have wifi! So I shall post this extra long chapter in celebration (and also maybe dance around my apartment for a bit).

Honestly though, writing this chapter was a bit more difficult and took a lot longer than the other ones. Some I can write in two or three sittings with minor editing, but I had to come back to this one again and again before it felt right. Kensei/Orihime interactions can be hard to write well, so I hope I did them justice.

Another side note: I am editing some of the earlier chapters. Nothing major, just some typos/minor inconsistencies that I noticed when looking through them again. Enjoy! Your reviews make me a better (and happier) writer!

* * *

 **Saturday**

 **12:12 p.m.**

"I don't know," Orihime answered obstinately for the fourth time. "I just did it."

She was curled up on the sofa, wrapped in layers of blankets. All she wanted was to spend a few hours not thinking about what had happened, and veg out in front of the TV with Shinji. She guessed she should be grateful that the interrogation didn't start until the afternoon at least, and that she had been allowed to sleep in.

Lunch had been quiet, though, and slightly awkward. Even Hiyori and Shinji kept their quarreling to a minimum and Orihime ate quickly in a vain attempt to escape the ominous thundercloud darkening Kensei's face that she knew would soon break over her head.

The thundercloud ruptured not soon after and in the deluge of shouting and reprimanding and what-were-you-thinking, she could sense the fear that was floating just below the surface. So she sat and said nothing until the door was slammed and he was out of the room and Mashiro had her arm around her in comfort.

"Kensei's angry," Orihime noted sadly.

"Kensei's always angry," Mashiro replied.

If the white-haired vizard had remembered the word "grounded" from his pre-soul reaper days, that would have been the last word he shouted before he stormed off, leaving Orihime wishing she could find the adequate words to apologize.

Besides, it wasn't his anger that upset her, but his disappointment. She had left home in the middle of the night on her own without telling anyone, and had almost died as a result, the vizard finding her only moments before death could. If Hachi hadn't woken at the exact moment she left, there would have been yellow tape enclosing the house for her this time, leaving her family to cope with the loss. Orihime knew, without having to be told, that it would have been the worst for Kensei.

She had let him down, and she couldn't feel more miserable about it.

So, Orihime resigned herself to sheepishly giving her account of events (to everyone except Kensei, but her instincts told her he was still within earshot), after which Hachi took it upon himself to start questioning.

"But did you say anything?" he probed further. "Any kind of words that seemed especially powerful at that moment?"

"No, I just walked right through it. I didn't say anything."

Hachi was still terribly confused at what had happened. The barrier he put up each night should have repelled not only those trying to intrude, but those trying to leave as well. Even in his sleep, it was not difficult for him to maintain a relatively powerful barrier, so natural it was to him. However, after Hachi had quickly sounded the alarm and the vizard frantically rushed to the entrance, the group had found the barrier still intact and undisturbed.

"When are you going to tell me what's going on?" Orihime blurted out impatiently. "What happened to my brother? Why was my body on the other side of the room? And what was that wall of light that you keep asking me about?"

"All in good time, Orihime," Hachi reassured her. "For right now, let's focus on your last question. The wall of light that you saw was a barrier I created to keep others from finding this place and to keep you safely inside. As we discovered very early this morning, it failed one of those objectives. I would like to find out why."

Orihime, who had no understanding of the concept of kido, was equally flummoxed about the significance of what she'd done. No matter how pretty it was, she couldn't comprehend how the wall of light was supposed to keep her in, so easy had it been for her to leave.

She thought for a moment. "After I walked through the light and turned around to look back, the whole warehouse had disappeared. Is that what you mean by keeping others from finding it?"

"Yes, that's exactly what I mean."

"But even though I couldn't see it, I still knew that it was there. I mean, I could sense it and I knew I could've gotten back inside after I…err, after I came back."

Hachi stared at her for a moment, his face betraying nothing. "Is that so," he said finally. Orihime stared back, perplexed.

"I wonder… I have a theory," he continued. "But I need to see you do it to be sure."

"Do what?" Orihime asked, as Hachi thrust his arms out in front of him, uttering the phrase that would bring the kido into being.

He didn't really need words, but sometimes it was nice to impress, he mused, looking at the girl.

Orihime's eyes were as big as saucers.

 **12:28 p.m.**

Shinji watched with raised eyebrows as the girl ran back and forth through the tiny Orihime-sized barrier at the largest vizard's prodding. She passed through it with no resistance and each time left Hachi looking more and more perplexed. He had never come across such a predicament in all his years, and years he had in plenty.

"So we're showing her our powers now?" Lisa muttered, materializing silently next to Shinji. Only a few of the vizard, like Hiyori, chose to announce their presence loudly.

"Well, we have to tell her something after everything that happened this morning. It would seem that keeping secrets could be even more dangerous." Shinji replied, his expression serious. "Besides, Hachi thinks she might have some kind of power of her own."

They watched curiously as Orihime halted her efforts, pausing to tug her barrettes loose from her hair at the vizard's request. The snowflake-shaped hair pieces shrunk to the size of toothpicks as she pressed them into one of Hachi's colossal hands. She watched expectantly as he examined them closely, and Shinji wondered if their young, fearless ward comprehended the enormity of the situation she had been thrust into.

If nothing else, he was sure, she had to know with some degree of certainty that her carefree (yet unconventional) childhood was coming to an end, and that nothing would be the same. She had changed, if nothing else. Your first hollow always changed you, especially when it was a relative.

There was only so long they could keep from telling her everything, Shinji knew. And as much as pig-headed Kensei would vehemently deny it, that day was coming sooner rather than later.

 **11:07 p.m.**

It wasn't that Orihime couldn't fall asleep.

After everything that had happened the night before, though, she wasn't sure she wanted to. She didn't know what kind of horror her unconsciousness would conjure, not with the terrifying memories still fresh in her mind. Although she now knew that nightmare had been _his_ doing, she also knew she was perfectly capable of having nightmares of her own.

She slipped out of bed and quietly opened the door to her room, her bare feet silently padding down the hall. Besides, she knew she couldn't sleep while Kensei was still upset with her.

When she got to his door, she softly knocked twice, then twisted the handle when she heard a muted "come in."

The room was dimly lit with just a lamp on a desk pushed up against a wall, she saw when she peeked in. Kensei was sitting in a chair in the middle of the room, lifting rather heavy looking weights. He was wearing his familiar tank top and cargo pants, and Orihime absentmindedly thought to herself that she had never actually seen him wear a shirt with sleeves. She pushed the door open uncertainly, unsure of what to expect.

"What are you doing awake?" he grunted, beads of sweat forming at his brow as he brought the weight up to meet his shoulder. The thundercloud from that morning was nowhere in sight.

"I couldn't sleep," Orihime answered, tentatively taking a seat on his bed. "I'm afraid I'll have nightmares."

Kensei sighed and placed the weight on the ground next to the chair. Orihime suspected that even if she used both hands and all her strength, she wouldn't be able to lift it even an inch.

"There's nothing to be worried about, Orihime," he replied, a little impatiently. "That creature's not around to try to hurt you anymore. Besides," he said, giving her a pointed look. "You'll always be safe if you stay _inside,_ not wandering around at night by yourself."

"I know that," she said stubbornly. "But there's still something I don't understand."

"What's that?"

"That creature… the one who called himself my brother… he said I was the reason he became like that. In my dream, it only took a second for him to transform into that thing. What if the same thing happens to me? What if I—"

"That won't happen," he said firmly.

"How do you know that?" she demanded. "How do you know I won't wake up one morning, look in the mirror, and see that creature's face instead of mine?"

Even she could sense the fear in that question as soon as it was voiced.

"Look at me, Orihime," Kensei ordered. "That's not going to happen."

"But how do you _know_?"

He heaved a sigh, and rested his head in one of his hands, his elbow balanced on his leg.

"That creature that you saw—it's called a hollow. They're monsters that prey on the souls of the dead. A person can only become a hollow if they've been devoured by one or if, after they've died, their resentment keeps them from moving on. Neither of which have happened to you."

"But I'm not dead, and it still came after me!" she protested.

"You're right. Hollows are sometimes drawn to humans with a lot of spiritual energy—people who can see ghosts or have special powers." He leaned forward. "Although technically, by the time that hollow was ready to eat you, you technically _were_ dead. That's why you were able to see your body across the room. And also why you were suddenly able to see that hollow, like you said."

So he had been listening earlier after all, it seemed.

"What special powers? And what do you mean, dead?" she demanded. "And besides, I've never seen a ghost before. Shinji told me he thought they weren't even real!"

"Well, Shinji's a liar," Kensei answered matter-of-factly. "Besides, are you really that surprised to find that out after everything that just happened to you?" He looked at her sternly.

"Not really," she admitted sheepishly.

"You were dead because that hollow knocked your soul out of your body." Kensei continued. "And you're alive now because the chain between your spirit and your body was still intact, so you could return to it. As for special powers… it's different for each person."

"Hachi thinks I have powers. Because I can go through his barrier."

"I know that," he said stiffly. He had been there when they found out the first time.

The enormous vizard had spent the better part of the day examining Orihime's cobalt blue barrettes that she frequently wore. When she asked why, he would merely mutter something about spiritual energy, waving the rest of her questions away. When he paused his inspection long enough to inquire if she remembered getting them, she admitted that she did not, though she had a sinking suspicion she knew who had given them to her.

After several hours of discovering nothing, Hachi finally gave up, claiming that if she had powers, they would reveal themselves in their own time. When he returned the barrettes, Orihime accepted them warily, pinning them to her hair a little more carefully than she had before.

Orihime thought for a moment. "So the reason that hollow attacked me was because I have a lot of this "spiritual energy" stuff? Is that why the first hollows came and… and… ate my family all that time ago, because they were looking for me?"

Kensei didn't answer, and Orihime didn't really expect him to. She kept talking.

"So that's why he was so angry, because it was my fault he became like that. It was interesting. When he was talking to me, he seemed almost torn between wanting to protect me and wanting me to answer for my supposed crimes. In the end, it was his anger that won out."

Kensei shook his head. "It wasn't your fault that that happened, and it wasn't his anger that caused him to attack you," he explained reluctantly. He still wasn't sure she was old enough to have this particular conversation, but here they were anyway. "You saw the hole in his chest, didn't you? Every hollow has one. It shows that where its soul should be is only emptiness. Hence the name _hollow_. It was the desire to fill that emptiness that made him attack you. He would have done it whether he told himself it was your fault or not."

Orihime sat for a moment, taking it in. Then another thought occurred to her.

"Hold on," she said, leaning forward. "What you said earlier about me being dead… you said I was able to finally see the hollow because I was suddenly knocked out of my body or whatever. So how is it that all of you could see it with no problem?"

Kensei was impressed. The girl was bright, brighter than most others her age. Then again, she had seen more.

The dim light cast a shadow under his eyes as he answered. "We're different. Just like you are."

He wasn't ready to tell her _that._ At least, not yet. But Orihime was already starting to have her suspicions about why they spent so much time training.

"Can I learn one day to see these ghosts?" she asked. "Without having to be dead, of course," she added as an afterthought.

Geez. He hoped not. She had gotten in too deep already, and he had explained too much against his better judgment. He had wanted her to have as much of a normal life as she could (even while living with such an unconventional family), which was why he had told her none of this before, and, if he could manage, would continue to keep her in the dark about everything else as long as possible. Shinji and a few of the others dissented, voicing their opinions during their late-night meetings (which became more frequent the older Orihime became), but, when necessary, Kensei could summon a tenacity to match both Hiyori and that little orange-haired bean. His persistence won out.

But it looked like that was going to change, especially if she really was developing powers of her own.

Orihime stared him down, her expression becoming more and more stern the longer the question remained unanswered. Finally, Kensei stood up and went to his desk, taking something from the drawer.

"Here," he said stiffly, handing the object to her. "I took this from the room. I wasn't sure if you would want it… as a reminder of your family."

The object he was offering to her was the picture frame that had been knocked to the ground, the one that Orihime had looked at to verify the truth of her brother's words. It was the picture of the family who had raised her for two short years of her life.

She examined the faces of the parents who had mistreated her and the brother who had tried to hurt her, then glanced up at Kensei, who was looking at her patiently, eyebrows raised. She handed it back to him.

"I don't want it," she said. "This isn't my family. Not anymore."

It was the best apology she could have given him. He nodded sharply and took the picture back, placing it face down on the desk. He didn't say anything, but as she watched the tension melt from his shoulders, Orihime could tell she was forgiven, just as she knew she would be.

She stood up, getting ready to leave.

"My real name is Inoue, isn't it?" she asked suddenly, her hand on the door knob.

"Are you going to change it?"

"No," she said softly. "I don't think so."

She left, closing the door gently behind her, and went back to bed.


	12. A Final Visit

A/N: A teeny tiny chapter to get you through the week.

* * *

 **7 A.O. (After Orihime)**

"How much further do we have to walk?" Shinji grumbled, dragging his feet.

He was lagging behind everyone else, and Love slowed down to keep pace with him out of pity. They could spy Orihime up ahead, her vibrant hair the fiery orange beacon they were following. Kensei walked half a step behind her, his hands shoved casually in his pockets, easily keeping up with her hurried pace.

"We're almost there!" Orihime called over her shoulder, far enough away that they had to strain to hear her.

"Didn't you go with her when she checked the public records?" Love asked reprovingly. "Or were you goofing off instead of helping research?"

"I—er, there were a lot of other things going on and it was hard to…" he trailed off feebly, scratching the back of his head in embarrassment.

"Found it!" Orihime announced triumphantly, and Love hurried to catch up to her, leaving Shinji to struggle after them.

By the time Shinji rounded the corner they were already inside, though the low, metal gate had been left open for him. With the slabs of black stone stacked uniformly in even rows, the delicate sprigs of Japanese star anise gently placed in thin, metal vases in front of them, and the faint smell of incense hanging in the air, there was no way to mistake the aesthetic appeal of a Japanese cemetery.

Shinji stood in the entrance for a moment, taking it in. Memories of memories flickered at the edges of his consciousness, but he let them go. He had long since given up trying to remember being alive. He was dead, and there was no getting around it, no matter how much his family looked like living, breathing humans to the rest of the outside world, no matter how hard they played at being alive. For all he knew, one of these tombstones could have been his. There was only one living soul in this graveyard, and she was currently walking up and down the rows, hunting through the names carved delicately on the charcoal black stone of each grave.

"Orihime," Kensei spoke suddenly, eyes fixed on the monument in front of him. She went to stand next to him, nodding once as she quickly read the name on the stone.

"Inoue," she confirmed. "This is it."

It had been almost a year after the incident before she finally felt ready to visit the cemetery. Kensei agreed when she asked. There was no reason for him to forbid her from going, but he also wasn't about to let her go alone. Love volunteered to tag along as well and Shinji was also roped into coming, and to help her search through the public documents to find the correct location.

Orihime appreciated their company, as she did every member in her family, even the ones a little harder to love. But Shinji knew the real reason Orihime was not at the graveyard alone. Though the ghosts stubborn enough to stay behind in the world of the living could wander the world freely, they were usually drawn to one of two locations: the place where they breathed their last, and the place where their earthly body was laid to rest, where their friends and relatives could grieve for them and the souls could find release in their mourning.

Kensei knew that, and he was not ready for Orihime to meet any more spirits she was related to. At least, not while she was alone.

Orihime bent down and gently placed the delicate sprigs of star anise into the thin, metal vase, one flower for each family member. She stared at the grave, silently mouthing the names as she read. They were foreign to her.

The visit wasn't sad for her. She didn't think of them as her family—after all, she had formally rejected them the moment she had refused to take the photograph from Kensei. They felt more like distant relatives that she vaguely remembered meeting once (aside from the one that she vividly remembered meeting), and had moved far away. Though she no longer gave them the honor of considering them family, she was still here to pray for their peaceful rest, and to find her own sense of closure. Just because she didn't love them didn't mean she had to hate them, either. She had come to pay her respects, whether they deserved them or not, and move on.

If she was honest with herself though, the real grave that she was here to visit was the one that was empty. Though her body had not been found with the others, she had obviously been assumed dead anyway and given a marker just in case. The words on the stone read _Orihime Inoue_ , though the person it had been carved for may as well have been an entirely different human being. And she would have been, if that little girl had grown up in that household, in that family. She would have been completely unrecognizable compared to the Orihime that was alive now. That Orihime had died that day and had been reincarnated into the girl standing in front of her grave.

Orihime let the relief sink in that it had been Hachi that day who had found her, that Mashiro and Lisa had gone to buy her clothes, that Kensei made her eat her vegetables. That Shinji sat through TV shows with her, that Hiyori threw temper tantrums, that Rose made her listen to weird music, that Love made bad puns. They were weird, and she loved them for it.

Orihime looked at the grave one last time and announced that she was ready to leave. Kensei regarded her silently with an insightful look. Shinji complained that they had just gotten there and that he was still tired. Love berated him for "being insensitive of the atmosphere."

Still, Shinji was the only one to notice that there had been four flowers placed in that vase. One for each family member who had passed on.


	13. Empty Desks

A/N: Woot! Finally starting to transition into the next arc. Let me know what you thought!

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 **8 A.O (After Orihime)**

No one had ever loved anything more than Orihime loved drawing, Kensei mused. It was summer break, and it seemed to him that was all she wanted to do to fill her time. Some days she filled paper after paper, the rejects crumpled in a pile under her chair. Other days she spent hours on one piece and presented them proudly to whoever happened to be in the proximity. She hung them up everywhere: on the fridge, on every cabinet, and one time Kensei was startled and slightly troubled to find one taped to the back of his closet.

He even had to pull her away when it was time for meals, and forgetting to eat was certainly not a problem Orihime usually had. But her imagination was endless and she wanted to draw everything—unicorns, robots, fairies, and Kensei—usually in the same picture.

She spent several hours creating a family portrait, making each of the vizard take turns posing or spying on the ones who complained. Kensei kicked her out of the bathroom more than once when he caught her watching him brush his teeth, her pencil moving furiously across her sketchbook. Likewise, Hiyori had on more than one occasion woken up from a nap on the couch to spot a blur of orange darting out of the room.

Mashiro hung up the drawing on the fridge when it was done. It was an amateur drawing from a ten-year-old, but what was important was that they were all in it. Orihime practically glowed with all of the praise she received. Kensei also gave his share of compliments in his usual gruff way, noting with a twinge of amusement that she had managed to capture Hiyori's scowl (that she apparently wore even while asleep), Shinji's weird goofy smile, and how massive Hachi was compared to the rest of them. But, despite the affection he felt for Orihime and therefore all of her weird random art, he found himself averting his eyes from the picture as much as possible for the next few weeks after waking up from a particularly disturbing nightmare in which he had gone to the fridge to get a midnight snack and woke up in a cold sweat instead. He had to go look at the picture in the kitchen right then to reassure himself that it in fact had just been a dream and that bone white masks had not been painted carefully over each of their faces—all nine of them.

 **9 A.O.**

It was Sunday, and Orihime was spending her afternoon as she usually did: flipping through manga and watching her family members spar. She had once thought about asking to learn, but lost interest when her own powers never developed.

Hachi was the only one who seemed to share her disinterest in sword fighting. She knew he owned a blade, but had seen it rarely and seen him use it even less frequently. Hachi's power seemed to lay in the strange phenomena he called "kido" and that was where he focused the bulk of his attention. Orihime liked to watch him practice sometimes.

Hiyori lay at the other end of the spectrum. The girl was bloodthirsty. She was wild and violent when she fought and it seemed to Orihime that her family members furtively drew straws when she demanded a match, which she did often, more frequently than anyone else.

"Why does Hiyori like to fight so much?" she asked Shinji one evening while they relaxed on the couch.

"It's because she has the most angst to get out of her system," Shinji answered, yawning.

"What's angst?"

"It's something you'll find out when you're a teenager."

 **10 A.O.**

"Kensei, why do you have a 69 tattooed on your chest?" Orihime asked one day. She was watching him spar with Love when he removed his shirt in his exertion.

"Well, it's because—" he began to answer.

"No wait, let me guess. That's how many girlfriends you have. That's how old you'll be when you die. That's how many bean buns you want to eat right now."

He gave her a flat stare. "The reason is—"

"Oooh, I want to try!" Mashiro joined in. "That's how many toes you have on your left foot. That's how many times a day you brush your teeth. That's how many—"

Kensei sheathed his sword and pulled on his shirt. "Why do I even bother?" he muttered, walking away.

 **11 A.O.**

Rose and Hachi were chatting good-humoredly while washing the dishes after lunch. Just as Rose was handing a plate to Hachi to dry, they heard a loud crash and an aggravated shout. Rose dropped the plate in surprise and Love stepped in the kitchen just as it shattered on the floor.

Love walked over to grab the broom as he remarked, "It would seem that it finally happened."

"Already?" asked Rose in disbelief. "So soon?"

Hachi glanced between the two men, aware that he was missing out on a crucial piece of information. "What's soon? What happened?"

"Orihime is finally taller than Hiyori," Love announced gravely. "By a centimeter," he added, as another enraged bout of yelling came from down the hall.

"Doesn't sound like she's taking it well," Hachi remarked pleasantly.

"She's the only one," Love replied as Orihime burst into the room.

"I beat Hiyori!" she announced panting and out of breath, as if she had just sprinted a 5K. Or evaded being chased by a tiny, blonde, angry vizard who just discovered she was back to being the shortest in the family. "Next is Lisa! And then Mashiro! And then someday Hachi!"

"Really? You want to be as tall as Hachi?" Rose asked, surprised. He looked over at the family picture on the fridge and imagined Orihime taking up as much space as the largest vizard. The mental picture was rather comical, and he tried and failed to fight back a grin.

"Sure, then I could get to school faster! And if I were _really_ tall, then I could strap two cars to my feet and roller blade there! But then there wouldn't be any room for me in the classroom, so I'd have to sit outside and listen through the window. And I'd have to buy a special giant sized pencil, and notebook, and…" she rambled on as Love handed her the broom and wordlessly pointed to the broken dish on the floor.

 **12 A.O.**

"Hey Kensei, can I get a tattoo like you?" Orihime asked. "I already know what I want to—"

"No."

And that was the end of that discussion.

 **13 A.O.**

"Where did Orihime go?" Love asked suddenly, looking up from his manga.

"She's on a date," Mashiro answered. "She'll be back later—"

"She WHAT?!" roared Kensei from the corner of the room where he was polishing his sword. He brandished it at the green-haired woman dangerously.

"Just kidding," Mashiro giggled. "She's at her friend Tatsuki's house. You're so gullible, Kensei."

Kensei rubbed his forehead as he walked to his room, muttering obscenities.

 **Friday**

 **3:37 p.m.**

It was the last day of the spring semester and Orihime and Tatsuki were walking home, discussing how they would spend their summer. Tatsuki had a major karate tournament in Tokyo, and Orihime was to go with. It would be the first time she left town without any of her family members with her. It had taken some wheedling, but Kensei had finally given in. She was fifteen now, after all.

It would be only one of many firsts. It was her first semester of high school, which she had just finished. She did indeed discover what angst was—if not through her own personal experience, then vicariously through her classmates. Tatsuki had calmed down somewhat since the day she pushed Orihime's bully to the ground in elementary school, but only somewhat, and while she was just as athletic and assertive as ever, she focused her energy in destroying everyone in just one sport this time: karate.

It was also the first time Orihime and Tatsuki expanded their social circle beyond just the two of them and Michiru. They had added Ryo, a tall, slender girl who Orihime secretly thought of as the "Tatsuki of track" and Chizuru, a slightly obnoxious, eccentric girl who took a sudden, intense interest in Orihime. The start of the new school year also brought new students, and Rukia, a transfer student from a nearby school, also frequently joined them for lunch. She was always very polite and reserved and stayed on the fringes of their circle as if afraid of giving too much of herself or getting too invested. Orihime wondered if Rukia's occasional aloofness stemmed from the belief that she didn't belong, and Orihime, being the compassionate, tenderhearted soul that she was, did all she could to subtly reassure her otherwise. She felt a strange camaraderie with the girl and wondered if she, too, was hiding something that she could share with no one else.

Except, perhaps, Ichigo. The only thing that was obvious to her and to the rest of her class was that those two spent an awful lot of time together. There was a lot of speculation over whether or not the pair were dating, but Tatsuki, a close friend of Ichigo, denied it, and Orihime likewise did not believe the gossip. Still, the fact remained that the two had gotten very close very quickly, and Orihime was certain there must be some explanation for why they would often jump out of their seats in perfect synchronization and run out of the classroom shouting excuses.

Orihime was sure there was an explanation. And she was willing to accept even the most outlandish story—after all, she had seen some pretty strange things herself.

And, only a few days before the end of the semester, it was her first time to realize how completely a person could be erased from her life. Because even though three people were absent that day, only two were speculated over. And when people wondered out loud where that delinquent Kurosaki kid was and what that standoffish Ishida boy was doing, no one mentioned the quiet, dark-haired girl's name. Not even Tatsuki.

Orihime received a strange look from her best friend when she mentioned her name, as well as several inquiries as to whether or not she was feeling alright. Orihime was used to having her sanity questioned (she sometimes questioned it herself, honestly), but not like this.

Instead, Orihime was left to speculate about how short her classmates' memories were. She had a feeling that desk would remain empty for a long time.


	14. Keeping Secrets

A/N: I'm still alive, I promise! I want to say that the next chapter will be up sooner, but it probably won't, unfortunately. Adulting is hard, but I will do my best. Enjoy!

* * *

 **Monday**

 **8:35 a.m.**

Orihime quickly discovered that she had been wrong about the desk.

"Good to see everyone back," their teacher had greeted the class after the bell rang. "I hope you all enjoyed your break."

It was their first day back after summer vacation and the start of the fall semester. The summer had flown by unbelievably fast in a whirlwind of karate tournaments, visits to the hospital (in which Tatsuki had broken her arm just before moving on to the finals, costing her the championship), late night conversations, and several red bean buns.

"We have a new transfer student that I'll be introducing to you in a little bit," she continued, "so please wait patiently until then. But for now, please pass your homework to the front."

There was a buzz of excited whispers mingled with the sound of shuffling papers as students speculated over their new classmate. Orihime could hear Michiru and Tatsuki's hushed conversation in the row behind her, but had no desire to join in.

Instead, she glanced over at the empty desk a few rows over, where Rukia had previously sat as a student, then shifted her gaze to the desk beside it, where Ichigo sat by the window. Keigo was determinedly trying to get his attention from a few rows back and Ichigo was determinedly ignoring him, tapping the student's shoulder in front of him and handing him the growing pile of homework. He rested his head on his hand and stared out the window, bored.

Orihime remembered how Ichigo had looked that last day of school when he showed up suddenly after being absent for more than a week. He'd had a tense, miserable, yet determined look to him and he'd walked out of the building resolutely, head held high, as soon as that last bell rang.

She wondered what had happened in that short month to cause such a sudden change in his demeanor. Whatever had been the cause of such distress had obviously been resolved. At first, Orihime was sure it had something to do with Rukia's mysterious disappearance. They had both started playing truant at the same time after all.

But the girl was still gone, so that couldn't be it. Sometimes, she wondered if she had just dreamed everything.

Nevertheless, even though it wouldn't be Rukia sitting there, she had been wrong about the desk. She wondered how Ichigo felt about getting a new neighbor after he had bonded so quickly with the last one and she had disappeared so suddenly. Orihime wondered if his memories of her were still intact, or if she would get the same bemused stare she had gotten from the rest of her classmates should she approach him.

More than anything, she wondered if he knew what had happened to her. Maybe someday she would actually have the guts to ask him.

Through her daydreaming, she was vaguely aware of a door sliding open.

"Ah, here he is!" the teacher announced, her voice barely registering in Orihime's ears through her reverie. "Please come introduce yourself to the class."

She half expected Rukia to walk through those doors.

"Happy to!" a voice replied cheerfully, and Orihime's head snapped up. Her heart skipped a beat, then pounded heavily in her chest. She felt a sudden buzzing in her ears, effectively blocking out the new student's introduction. She didn't need to listen to it anyway—she already knew his name. And she didn't need to hear his explanation about why he had written his name backwards on the board—she already knew he was a complete weirdo.

But what she didn't know was why Shinji Hirako was suddenly in her classroom, sitting in Rukia's empty desk, introducing himself to Ichigo, sounding confident that they were going to be best friends.

Shinji Hirako, the new student? The universe was obviously playing a sick prank on her as some kind of punishment. Since when did Shinji care about school? He didn't even care whether or not _she_ went to school. And if Kensei wasn't there to breathe down her neck about getting homework done, he definitely wouldn't be the one to take his place. He was so lazy, and as far as she could tell, cared more about having fun than being studious.

Yet there he was, just two rows over, diligently coping down formulas into his open notebook. He didn't turn and look at her from his new desk, even though they were sitting close enough for him to get away with a cheeky smirk in her direction. How unlike him.

Even with the threat of an upcoming test hanging over her, there was no possible way Orihime could pay attention to a 45-minute lecture on trigonometry. She was too busy screaming in her head. She risked peeking back over at Shinji, hoping the reason he had decided to intrude in her class would be written across his face, in only a language she could decipher. It was not.

Orihime laid her head on her desk and pulled her hair to cover her face. It was going to be a long, stressful day and she had no idea what was happening.

But she did know that there was going to be hell to pay later.

 **3:37 p.m.**

To his credit, Shinji didn't try to talk to Orihime at school. Not that she gave him any opportunity to. She avoided him as much as possible during breaks between classes and during lunch time.

When Orihime was little, the vizard would take turns picking her up from school, and Shinji was one of her family members to volunteer for it more frequently. Orihime was deathly afraid that any moment, one of her classmates would put two and two together, jump up on a desk, point at Orihime, and accuse her of being related to such a weirdo, in which case she would promptly pray for the ground to swallow her whole. However, since it had been several years since Orihime was young enough to need someone to pick her up from school, no one pointed and shouted, and Orihime did not have to pray for such drastic measures. Even Tatsuki didn't seem to make the connection between this man in the classroom and the one she was sure to have seen waiting for her at the school entrance during their time in elementary school.

Besides, everyone was too distracted at his behavior to pay any attention to her. He was so obnoxious, and it was hard enough ignoring his stupid, blonde head while taking notes during a math lecture, let alone having to watch him loudly flirt with and get rejected by the other girls. Orihime tensed briefly when a boy tried to pull her into the conversation, but after a very short, pregnant pause in which she did not look up from her desk, Shinji distracted them with another stupid comment, and Orihime was safe.

At least he wasn't a complete idiot.

After the last bell rang, she had quickly scooped up her things, and darted out into the hall and to the safety of the classroom where the handicrafts club took place. She didn't always go, but there was no way she was running even the slightest risk of being seen walking home with her obnoxious family member who was now her new classmate.

She sat and chatted with Michiru while she struggled to both sew an arm back onto a pink stuffed rabbit and simultaneously steer the conversation away from the topic of their exciting new classmate. She failed royally at both.

After fifteen minutes of frustration and pricking her thumb at least three times, she set down her needle and glanced around. The Ishida boy sat aloof at a desk in the corner, as he typically was during these club meetings. He was reading a book and tuning out the idle chatter that buzzed about the room, most of it about Shinji. Orihime had heard from Michiru that he came religiously every day, but rarely participated, and only spoke when spoken to. Still, he was the most talented member in the club and her frustration at not being able to sew the stupid thing together negated any shyness she felt about approaching him.

Orihime stood up and walked over to him, silently proffering her rabbit and its dismembered arm. He stared at her wordlessly, accepted the doll, and reattached the limb with deft movements almost too fast for her to follow. He finished in moments, the doll back in her possession almost as soon as he had taken it. She thanked him politely, but sincerely, to which he responded by picking up his book and resuming reading, giving her only the slightest of nods.

Uryu watched her as she walked away. He lowered the book he had been reading, a German translation of essays about trigonometry, and listened with interest as Orihime tried to carefully and unsuccessfully change the topic of conversation by going on tangents, which she seemed to be very good at. Nevertheless, it appeared as if her friend could only be distracted for so long.

It seemed that the Orihime girl was smarter than she looked after all. Uryu was impressed that she had managed to go her entire life without letting a single soul in on her secret, even her closest friends. How stressful it must have been for one of them to suddenly show up out of the blue without telling her beforehand. Her panicked reaction upon seeing that man told him she had no idea he would be there, after all. Or maybe it was less that she was smart and more that her friends were oblivious. Orihime's erratic, nervous behavior throughout the entire day was blatantly obvious to him, yet no one else seemed to notice.

Uryu knew about Orihime's family, of course. He knew that they lived together on the edge of town (though he had personally never seen their place of residence), that they were soul reapers who had probably defected (it seemed that they couldn't be trusted even by their own kind), and that several years ago, Orihime had survived an attack from a particularly vicious hollow who made a den in a vacant house in town. Uryu would have gone to take care of it himself much earlier if it had not been so clever at hiding its spiritual pressure.

He briefly pondered over Orihime's relationship with that blonde-haired clown from earlier. He didn't hold it against her that she was living with soul reapers—she probably didn't know any better. And she was most likely going through some kind of training with them to improve her spiritual pressure that was so faint, he had only just noticed it this year. If it really was training, it didn't seem to be going very well.

He turned his attention back to his book, blocking out the idle chatter once more.

Honestly, he didn't really care.

 **7:26 p.m.**

Michiru had finally gotten the topic of Shinji out of her system, to Orihime's relief.

The two were sprawled on the floor of Michiru's bedroom, halfheartedly studying their notes from the math lesson earlier that day.

"I give up," Michiru announced, slamming her notebook shut and tossing it across the room. "I accept failure. I'm quitting school and becoming a nun."

Orihime merely started at her notes (that she had copied from Michiru later), her brow furrowed. She was having as much success in her studying as her friend was. They both looked up as the door suddenly opened.

"Orihime," Michiru's mom began after lightly knocking on the door she had already cracked open, "Your sister is here to get you. Why don't you pack up your things and I'll get you some sweets for the road. Does she go to Karakura High School? I don't recognize her uniform."

There was only one person that could be. Orihime started shoving her things back into her bag.  
"No, she goes to a school nearby," she answered with a cheerfulness that she didn't feel. "No need for the sweets, Mrs. Ogawa. I eat too much as it is."

She forced herself to wait patiently as Michiru walked her to the door. She stepped outside and saw Lisa's usual serious face, this time even more solemn.

Something was wrong.

 **7:31 p.m.**

Uryu could faintly sense Orihime's spiritual pressure, now almost completely overshadowed by another's. The two were quickly moving in the opposite direction from him, towards the edge of town. It was for the best, he thought, as he turned back around to face the massive, grotesque looking menos in front of him.

A hollow of this level may have been a problem for him even a month ago, but he had trained relentlessly since then. Every day since he had been cut down in the middle of the night by those soul reapers and left to die in the pouring rain.

That wouldn't happen again.

Uryu despised soul reapers. The Kurosaki kid wasn't so bad, though he still thought he was pretty irritating. Still, he didn't hate him, and maybe that was what had brought him that night toting a plastic bag full of nothing but lame excuses for why he was on that particular street at two in the morning.

Or maybe it was the promise of the possibility to humiliate a couple of soul reapers.

But he had miscalculated, and had paid dearly. Kurosaki had gotten it even worse though, it seemed, when his powers had been cut from him and that new soul reaper girl at school Rukia had uttered those words that seemed to cut even deeper.

When Kurosaki and Yasutora left to venture into the depths of the Soul Society to find a way to drag her back, Uryu didn't join them. That was none of his business.

A single arrow left the hollow in front of him howling in rage and disintegrating in an instant.

He hated soul reapers. But he hated hollows even more. Heaven forbid the two ever combined into one being he would despise that creature with every inch of himself.

Thank god that wasn't possible.


	15. Catalytic Encounters

A/N: Happy Friday! I hope you enjoy this slighter longer than usual chapter :)

* * *

 **Wednesday**

 **4:48 p.m.**

Uryu stared at the gaping hole in the ground in mild disbelief.

It was not the most destruction he had ever seen a hollow cause, by any means, though it was the most he had seen from a mere arrival. But what was even more astounding were the creatures that had just crawled out of it.

They were hollows. Or so he thought. At least, they felt like hollows, though they carried swords like soul reapers and looked like neither.

Uryu supposed they more or less resembled humans. At the very least, more than they did any other hollow he had fought, though thinking back on the beast he had just disintegrated just a few days ago, that was not saying much.

He kept his eyes trained on the two intruders. Had he removed his broken mask and covered the hole in his neck, the smallest one could have passed as a man, albeit a rather unusual one. The other one was colossal and dwarfed his companion. With the massive stature and animalistic grin of the giant and the pale white skin and apathetic, flat stare from the man, the two were as different as night and day.

Uryu took in his surroundings. He was by no means the only one in the area, but he was one of the only ones still standing. And conscious. A boy he recognized from his class, Yasutora, was there as well, crouched protectively over the prone form of a spikey haired girl whose face was tilted at angle away from him so that he couldn't make out who it was. But he noted with interest the unusual shape Yasutora's right arm had taken, held up in front of his face to ward off a kick from the giant. With his fist clenched, features knitted into a scowl, the boy swung his right arm forward and let loose a burst of energy toward the direction of the largest intruder.

It was over in less than a second. In the amount of time it took Uryu to blink, Yasutora was on his back, large pieces suddenly missing from his arm, and blood coming from just about everywhere else.

The giant grinned sadistically, bellowing his victory and going for the kill. In all the commotion, Uryu's presence had not yet been detected. But eyeing the rapidly deteriorating situation, he figured it was just about time to make himself known.

A bow appeared in his hand at just a thought, and he drew it swiftly.

 **Tuesday**

 **5:05 p.m.**

The clock on the bedside table flashed bright green digital numbers as a five blinked once and transformed into a six. Orihime stared at it in a daze.

She was crouched forward in the uncomfortable too-small plastic chair she had been given. She had been sitting for so long that she had shifted through just about every position possible until she had finally given up, resigning herself to the sore rear she would have when she finally left, whenever that would be.

She sighed. Orihime was tired of being in hospitals.

Even for something as minor as a broken wrist that had forced her best friend into a hospital room for a few days in the middle of her karate tournament, and even though Tatsuki had dealt with everything with her usual stubborn optimism, Orihime had still hated to see her in that room, surrounded by those sterile white walls.

And here they were again. It wasn't the same hospital, but it could have been, with the same bleached walls and perfectly ironed bedsheets and furniture chosen for practicality rather than style. It brought back memories of that summer, sitting by Tatsuki's bedside, listening to her frustrations about having to forfeit the final match. Orihime would have gladly gone back to that moment.

Because losing a karate match was still better than going into a coma.

Orihime had been sitting next to Michiru in the classroom where they had their handicrafts club when she was called to the office to find out that her best friend was in the hospital and wouldn't wake up. She had actually been admitted the day before, but her mother had been understandably too distraught to remember until later that there were other people who also cared deeply about her daughter. It was just as well. Tatsuki wasn't allowed non-family visitors until a few days later, anyway.

Orihime didn't remember returning to the classroom after the phone call, but she must have, because she had her backpack on the walk home, taking slow, dragging steps out of the school yard, her feet steadily moving faster and faster of their own accord until she was flying through the giant door of the warehouse she called home, too exhausted to keep moving and too anxious to stop.

Orihime remembered two strange things about that day, other than the phone call. First, that her family members did not seem surprised by her best friend's forced visit to the hospital, merely listening to the news with grim faces and a few words of condolence.

Second, that for the first time that she could remember, Uryu had not come to the club meeting.

For Uryu Ishida, the most punctual, fastidious, dedicated student in their grade, absence from even a minor club activity was unlike him. And when he finally showed up the next day, Orihime sensed an angst that went deeper than his usual serious, antisocial disposition.

And he wasn't the only one. Ichigo, the boy Orihime had watched from a distance since their elementary school days, was noticeably grumpier and more agitated (except, of course, to Keigo—his obnoxious, lighthearted banter seeming to irritate Ichigo more than usual). And he had every reason to be. Tatsuki had been one of his best friends too. Orihime wanted to reach out to him, to offer some kind of comfort, but something about his face told her that nothing she could say could go far enough—could reach him wherever he was.

She'd caught sight of him by accident on one of her hospital visits, her heart stopping as she put her hand on the doorknob to Tatsuki's room and paused briefly to look through the window. She froze as she glimpsed him through the glass, his back turned to her, gazing down at his prone friend. She watched him for a moment, examining his hunched shoulders, wondering how she had just now noticed the tension and weight they carried that must have been there since the day he had lost his mother. It had been so long ago that she had spoken to Tatsuki about it, that day she learned that sometimes even ghost stories contain bits of truth.

Her hand slipped away quietly from the doorknob and she continued down the hallway with the intention of lingering in the waiting room until he left. She knew Ichigo well enough to know that by nature he was rather reserved and she was not one to disturb such a private moment.

She didn't have to wait long. She heard a door down the hall quietly click shut and she pictured Ichigo leaving, his hands shoved in his pockets as he strode away. She set down the magazine she had been flipping through and stepped out of the waiting room, gently closing the door and turning around.

If she had been surprised to see him in Tatsuki's room, she was even more taken aback to see him in front of her at that moment.

The exit wasn't this way. He must have seen her as she turned away and came to look for her.

It was one of the rare moments in her life that she was lost for words.

She blinked a few moments and stuttered, "Err… Ichigo! I wasn't expecting to see you here…" She paused, unsure if she should wait for him to say something. "You must be here to see Tatsuki," she added, lamely.

He looked at her for a moment, then glanced away. "I guess I just wanted to see if she was doing alright. I heard she was getting better."

"She's doing much better!" Orihime gushed, suddenly animated. "She's already woken up from the coma and she's getting stronger and stronger every day. She's lost a few of her memories, but they're starting to come back slowly. I'm sure she'll be back to normal in no time."

Ichigo took in this information quietly, his face expressionless. He turned his gaze back to Orihime and asked suddenly, "Are _you_ doing alright?"

Orihime was taken aback. In all the chaos surrounding Tatsuki's sudden hospitalization, there had been no one to ask about how _she_ was doing.

"Err—I'm alright. I mean, I come visit after school every day, but I still manage to get all my homework done and everything. And we've got that big math test coming up, but I've still been able to study for it…"

"Orihime," he said disapprovingly.

She jerked her head up from where she had been absentmindedly looking at the wall while she trailed off. He was frowning slightly, unsatisfied with her answer. Of course he didn't care whether or not she was getting her homework done.

Determined, passionate Orihime, who, since she had been a toddler, could at times flaunt a stubborn streak that rivaled Hiyori's, who had the stamina to unabashedly argue with Kensei for hours, who could brazenly match Shinji in lack of manners, felt suddenly, uncharacteristically shy.

"It's alright not to smile when you aren't happy, you know."

She'd smiled anyway, reassuringly. "No really, I'm alright. I mean, getting that phone call was one of the most difficult things in my life. But she's getting better, really. And her memories are coming back, slowly I think. It's killing me, not knowing what happened. I mean, they found her in this random park outside of town! What was she even doing there? But part of me wonders if she's better off not ever remembering at all. If something traumatic happened, and remembering would just cause her more pain."

She could feel the worry and stress that she had bottled up, spilling out to this boy she had never spoken to outside of group projects.

Ichigo nodded, as if she had said the most natural thing in the world.

"I've known Tatsuki since we were both kids," he began slowly. "We studied karate together, did she tell you that?" Orihime nodded and he continued. "I remember when she met you. It was like her entire attitude changed. I mean, she was still the same hotheaded, irritating little brat, but…"

Orihime smiled wistfully. Hotheaded was an accurate word to describe the Tatsuki she'd met as a child.

"She was never the kind of person to talk about it, but I know your friendship meant the world to her. And it means that much still, you coming to visit her every day."

He had one hand behind his neck now, visibly embarrassed. Ichigo was not the most forthcoming person when it came to talking about feelings, but Orihime could tell that for some reason, he felt compelled to share now.

It had never occurred to her that the boy she had been watching surreptitiously all her life might have been paying attention to her as well.

He turned around to leave.

"Ichigo—thanks," she blurted out. It looked like he had been the one to comfort her, in the end.

He raised a casual hand in acknowledgement. "Just keep visiting her, alright?"

She nodded at his retreating figure.

Watching the rise and fall of Tatsuki's breathing, Orihime wondered, not for the first time, if she had imagined that conversation.

What she had said about Tatsuki's recovery had been true. She had woken from her coma-like state, to the relief of her parents, and Orihime had stepped aside to let them have their moment. Tatsuki did not speak to them much about the incident, claiming a foggy memory, but she had once whispered to Orihime out of the earshot of eavesdropping nurses that she had seen Chad there too.

Orihime had reeled at this information. She knew that at the time Tatsuki had been found passed on the ground, there had been others, some in worse states. But Chad had not been one of them. Though thinking back, Chad had also started missing school the same time as Tatsuki.

As she signed out in the lobby, she didn't bother asking the receptionist about him. Somehow, she knew without checking that he would not be in this hospital.

She frowned as she walked out the entrance and down the steps, deep in thought. This was the main hospital for the city. If he had been injured like Tatsuki had been, there was nowhere else he would be. She mentally kicked herself for not asking Ichigo when she ran into him earlier, but she had been too flustered to think of it. Ichigo and Chad were infamous good friends and Orihime had heard more gossip than she had wanted to about fights the pair had gotten into. Surely Ichigo would know about where his injured friend was.

She stopped. Ichigo.

Ichigo's family owned a small clinic on the other side of town. She had never been to it before, but knew where it was. Surely, Chad had to be there.

An image of the park flashed through her mind and she pushed it away. All this not knowing was eating at Orihime.

She resolved to visit Chad the next day.

Surely _he_ would still have some of his memories.

 **6:49 p.m.**

Uryu watched her leave the hospital.

It wasn't that he was a stalker or anything. He was just mildly concerned for the girl's safety. For someone who's spiritual pressure he could sense steadily increasing, her spiritual awareness was not growing with it.

Perhaps that inability had saved her that day when the attacks happened. The day when Uryu realized, in fact, that there were things in the universe he was wrong about. Days later, he still could not shake the disgust he felt all the way to his bones.

The day those two monsters came, those maskless hollows wearing swords and calling themselves espadas, they exuded such a distinctive and powerful spiritual energy that he was sure had never existed before in this world.

If there had been, he would have felt it.

Uryu, of course, had sensed them immediately. And, as a quincy, it was his duty to defend the living souls of Karakura Town from hollow beasts.

His senses had led him to a small field near a park. When he got there, he was not surprised to find that the noise and tremor from the crash had drawn others there as well, people unfortunate enough to be close by and curious about the commotion. They lay unconscious, scattered about the field, and judging by the looks of the intruders, he'd doubted that all of them were still breathing.

It had taken Kurosaki too long to get there.

It wasn't that he needed the help or anything. But he would have preferred to spend the least amount of time possible in the company of those creatures and he figured joining forces with Kurosaki would end the battle just a little bit sooner.

After he had finally arrived and they had argued briefly and then reluctantly joined forces, and after Kurosaki had been beaten around quite a bit, even for him, the mysterious former-soul-reaper-now-shop-owner Uryu had seen one time showed up suddenly with another woman in tow, and after they rescued Kurosaki and brought the situation under control, Uryu had discreetly ducked out and pulled out his phone.

As soon as the line connected, he began to break down the situation quickly, barking out the location and snapping his phone shut, not giving that man any time to harass him or pester him with his stupid insightful questions. He assumed that the party would have dispersed and the intruders either chased away or taken care of by the time the ambulances he requested got there, and he had been right. The situation had been taken care of and the injured transferred to hospitals quickly and discreetly, with minimal public uproar. At least Ryuken Ishida was good for one thing.

He didn't know who the intruders were, where they were from, or why they were there. He wanted to care less than he did, but he knew better than to assume that they would never be back.

But he had no idea just how momentous that encounter would be—that it would force into motion a chain of events that would start with a heated meeting between other so called "espada" and coalesce into an unsavory blue-haired character with dubious intentions deciding to make an impromptu trip to the world of the living.

With a jolt, Uryu suddenly realized Orihime had turned off from her path home. His eyes narrowed. He didn't need to be able to sense her to know where she was going.

He followed.

 **7:18 p.m.**

Orihime stopped at the edge of the small field. There was a park nearby, but it was getting dark, and it was empty.

She didn't know why she was here, or what she was expecting to find. Tatsuki had come to this place on that day, though she couldn't explain why. She used to play soccer here when she had been younger, but hadn't come back for years. It had been a school day and she had been on her way home. There was no reason for her to come.

And there was no reason for Orihime to be here now. It was getting dark, too dark to even make out the massive crater in the earth she knew was just up ahead. She was going to be late getting home, and Kensei was going to be mad.

Orihime hurried back to the road, feeling an inexplicable relief at the sight of street lights. She sighed and slowed her pace.

Just as she was starting to feel comfortable in the routine of walking home and getting lost in thought, she began to feel a creeping sensation up the back of her neck, and she glanced around to ascertain that she was not being followed as her senses were warning her.

The streetlights seemed suddenly less friendly and the shadows they cast on the ground more like sharp, menacing teeth pulled back into grins. Orihime berated herself for having such an overactive imagination.

But then, before she knew what was happening, out of one the teeth materialized a form that looked quite solid.

With a white jacket open over a bare chest and a wide helmet wrapped partially in bandages and pulled over one of his eyes, the figure was like nothing Orihime had ever seen before.

She broke into a cold sweat as the figure looked in her direction.

He grinned.


	16. Memories

A/N: It's been a little while since I've posted, but I promise I'm still working on this story (slowly but surely)! Leave a review :)

* * *

 **7:25 p.m.**

He could feel them—pinpoints of energy around the city. They appeared suddenly and seemingly out of nowhere. He couldn't guess at their purpose but knew it couldn't be good.

He even knew what they were called—arrancar. A special breed of hollows the traitor Aizen was developing, had been developing for decades. He remembered well. His family had been the first of many victims of Aizen's experiments with hollowfication, after all.

Only the pricklings of energy he felt suddenly materialize about the city could no longer be called hollows—not really. Just like his kind were soul reapers—but not really. They were that, but more. Soul reapers who'd had hollow masks violently forced upon them, with no choice but to accept them as part of their identity. Arrancar, on the other hand, were beasts that had torn off their masks and taken up swords to gain powers that had once been out of reach to them, powers that Aizen had been able to offer.

They were like him, but not like him. They were polar opposites, and at the same time, they were twins. They found commonality in their stubborn pride for what they were, while holding in contempt where they had come from. The arrancar sneered at hollows weaker than them—despite having been born from them. And how often did any of his family members express their disdain for soul reapers? He didn't have to look farther than the smallest member of their family to find the most vitriolic opinion.

Though their powers were more similar than the vizard liked to admit, there was more that set them apart. The most notable being that while the arrancar had clawed and grasped for their power, the vizard had theirs unwillingly thrust upon them. And it was that lack of choice that made all the difference to them.

The vizard didn't usually bother themselves with hollows. There were plenty of soul reapers in the city to take care of them. The hollow they had fought and destroyed so many years ago on the night of Orihime's disappearance had been the first one in decades. And it had been nearly a decade since that night, too.

Kensei's usual frown intensified at the memory of that night, and he lowered the weight that he gripped in his right hand. It was getting dark and Orihime wasn't home yet. The girl had only a few more minutes until she passed curfew.

He brought the weight back up to meet his shoulder as he tried to squash the uneasiness he felt curling his gut. He had a bad premonition, and he knew why.

It felt too much like that night.

 **7:28 p.m.**

"You're not a soul reaper, are you?" The figure called out, a grin still plastered on his face. His voice was high-pitched and uncanny. It made shivers crawl up Orihime's spine.

"I don't know what that is," she said tentatively. She was not so sure she wanted to have a conversation with this man, but, nervously eyeing the sword tied to his waist, figured it was better than other alternatives.

They were about a stone's throw away from each other, close enough that she could hear him clearly but far enough away that she had to squint to make out his features from where he stood just out of the light of the street lamp.

As if he had just become aware of this himself, the figure began to stroll in her direction, hands thrust casually in his pockets, slowly but steadily decreasing the distance between them. Orihime resented every step he took.

"That's a shame," he said, feigning disappointment. "I don't really have time to educate you, you know."

Her eyes were immediately drawn to his face as he stepped further into the light of the street lamp. Pulled back into a sinister grin were rows of jagged teeth that immediately brought to Orihime's mind the image of a shark. With a sickening feeling in her gut and a familiar sensation of being cornered, she grew less certain that the figure in front of her was fully human.

"Educate me on what?" she blurted hastily, anything to get to him to _stop moving_ , to get his mind off whatever track it was on—and judging by the way he looked at her with his shark-toothed smirk and the way he lightly but deliberately had his hand placed on his sword, she was sure it couldn't be good.

He halted, finally, about ten feet in front of her. Orihime felt a hesitant sense of relief.

"Oh, you know," he drawled. "The same old story. The eternal struggle between hollows and soul reapers. The hollow's appetite for human souls and the self-righteous soul reaper's need to protect the weakling humans."

 _Hollow._ The word struck a chord in her memory and she felt herself going back years to a conversation she had once had with Kensei on a night she was afraid to go to sleep.

What was it that he had said? She could almost see his blurry face in front of her.

 _"That creature that you saw—it's called a hollow. They're monsters that prey on the souls of the dead,"_ he had explained.

But there had been more. Surely he had said something that could help her make sense of this situation she was in now.

 _"They're sometimes drawn to humans with a lot of spiritual energy—people who can see ghosts or have special powers,"_ he had continued.

 _"So the reason that hollow attacked me was because I have a lot of this 'spiritual energy' stuff?"_ she had asked.

That information didn't help her now. This man who stood in front of her, though eerily inhuman, was nothing like the monster her brother had become.

Or was he? He was close enough now for her to make out more of his features. She tore her eyes off his sadistic grin and glanced down at his chest. His jacket was open and she could make out a sizeable hole, carved cleanly just below his collarbone. It was large enough for her to put her fist through, and she could enough glimpse the other side of the street through it.

Her brother—her brother had had one just like it…

 _"You saw the hole in his chest didn't you? Every hollow has one. It shows that where its soul should be is only emptiness… and it was the desire to fill that emptiness that made him attack you."_

"Hollow," she said as she reluctantly brought her gaze back to his face. His grin grew wider.

"Close," he said. "But not quite." Then he literally disappeared.

Orihime didn't even have time to be confused before he reappeared suddenly before her. She saw stars as she was slammed against a street light several feet away, and she blinked, blinded by the sudden light.

She squinted, straining to see him jaunting towards her. Panic blossomed in her chest as she fully came to terms with the manner of creature in front of her. Though he didn't appear the beast her brother had been, his human-like appearance didn't seem to lesson any of his monstrous characteristics.

"Let's get this over with," he said, eyes glinting with excitement, and drew back his hand, holding it level, his palm facing downwards. His presence was cloying, choking, it was hard to breathe—why had she even been worried about his sword?

Through the panic she could feel swelling to a bursting point in her chest, she could feel something more—a determination to live. And a resentment at being accosted by a creature like this. She hadn't been born, hadn't survived everything she had for it all to end in this moment. Tatsuki's face appeared in front of her, followed by Kensei's, and the rest of her family members'. Rukia's. And Ichigo's.

Something else began to build up, something she was suddenly aware had been buried inside of her since her birth, waiting for the right moment to surface. She could feel it take shape, could feel it stirring—a sudden warmth where her barrettes pressed against her skin, the shape of words beginning to form on her lips—

The pressure which had been so overwhelming just a moment before disappeared instantly as the creature—man—hollow was slammed back by a hurricanic force that passed over her head.

"Get what over with?" came a curt voice from just behind her, and Orihime would have sunk to the ground in relief if she were not already sitting on it.

Orihime remembered the fight with vivid clarity. It wasn't as if it lasted long. But what she remembered the most clearly was how familiar his cries of frustration sounded as he was torn in two, and the hatred she could see clearly in his eyes as he turned to face her moments before he evaporated into nothingness and was swallowed by the night.

Shinji hadn't tried to keep her from watching the fight. And Kensei didn't offer any explanations when it was over. Instead, they walked home together, in a familiar, frustrating silence.

Her mind was racing, and she was too distracted by the frantic tempo of her thoughts to notice a figure in glasses slipping away down a side street.

On the walk home, she tried to sort through the onslaught of emotions. The loudest of them was relief, of course. She had almost died, again, and been rescued, again. But buried underneath that was a sense of disappointment. She had been on the verge of discovering a part of herself, a power she didn't know she had. And now it was gone, and it resisted any attempt to pull it back to the surface.

 _"We're different. Just like you are,"_ Kensei had told her once. Frustration turned to resentment. She resented being deliberately left in the dark. She had almost lost her life twice now, both in bizarre and terrifying events. She was old enough now that she deserved to know more about it.

Her resentment was short lived.

Everyone was already gathered when they stepped through the front door. All eyes turned to Kensei.

"It's time," he said.

 **Wednesday**

She had been allowed to skip school, but she went anyway. Orihime was a star student, and being almost murdered the night before wasn't a good enough excuse to miss a math test. Besides, after their late night "family meeting," she was getting too many concerned glances and she needed space.

So after a light breakfast (which Orihime wolfed down hastily to escape the meaningful looks Rose was giving her over his bowl of cereal) and little bit of first aid administered by Hachi, she was on her way out with a hasty "Off to school!" called out over her shoulder.

Orihime was more surprised than she should have been at how ordinary everything was. The normalcy of it all was overwhelming—it took all her brainpower to focus on having a simple conversation with Michiru over her bento (that she had purchased at a convenience store on her way to school rather than pester Kensei or Love to make her lunch). She vaguely registered that Shinji had not followed her to school that morning, though she did not have the energy to wonder (or even care) why.

Tatsuki's absence was a constant reminder that everything was not, in fact, as it should be. She could not get the image of her alone in that hospital room out of her mind.

Nor had she forgotten her promise to herself to visit Chad, who was not in school that day. Neither, for that matter, was Ichigo, whose home she had assumed Chad was staying at, but she didn't think much of it. Ichigo could sometimes be a bit of a "delinquent student," every so often getting into fights and missing classes for some excuse or another. Back before Rukia had mysteriously vanished, Orihime had occasionally spotted the pair darting out of the school building together, running at a full sprint, as if the world was coming to an end and they alone could stop it.

Despite her urgency to talk to Chad, she took more time than usual at her handicrafts club, meticulously choosing the exact shade of thread that matched the fabric of her current project, (a pink bear she had received for her birthday one year, whose limb was starting to detach from its body) painstakingly undoing and redoing the stitches until they were perfect. The sun was beginning its slow descent by the time she started to make her way to the Kurosaki residence.

She knocked on the door more confidently than she felt, cursing her heart that was beating much too fast. As if she didn't have enough on her mind as it was, her thoughts were occupied with the memory of that meeting in the hospital. Though it had only happened the day before, it felt like a lifetime, and this would be the first time to see him since then.

Her breath caught as the handle turned, and Orihime hastily readied her apology for showing up on his doorstep so late. The words died on her lips.

It was not a tall, lanky, orange-haired boy of 15 who was standing in the entryway when the door swung open. Neither was it either of his adorable little sisters or his too-excited-about-life energetic father.

It was a girl she had thought to have disappeared completely from the world—and stolen everyone's memories along with her.

"Rukia?"


	17. A Game of Chess

A/N: Wow, it's been way too long since I've posted a chapter! I promise I'm still alive and working on this story, just a bit slowly. But here is an extra-long one to hopefully tide you over until the next update. :) Leave a review! Thanks to everyone who's reviewed so far! You guys are the best!

Another side note: Pay close attention to the dates/times in this chapter—there's some going back and forth.

* * *

 **Wednesday**

 **6:05 p.m.**

Orihime was a star student. She was rarely absent, turned her homework in on time, and always did well on tests. School came easy to her.

But sometimes during class, her eyes would drift from the squiggles on the board to the back of Ichigo's head where he sat a few rows in front of her, and she would find her mind wandering. This was a common occurrence for Orihime who daydreamed often about robots or penguins or world domination, each fantasy more ridiculous than the last. But her daydreams about Ichigo were always... different.

She imagined that she was assigned to work with him on a project, just the two of them. They would work hard, but wouldn't have enough time to finish during class, so they would have no choice but to go to his house to complete it. He would open the door for her and she would take off her shoes in the entryway, arranging them neatly to one side. She would shyly introduce herself to his dad, who would excitedly proclaim how happy he was that his son finally had a girlfriend, and such a beautiful one at that. Ichigo would turn beet red in embarrassment, sputtering _She's just a friend, just here to work on a project—_ while Orihime stood to one side blushing and stuttering. They would go to his room and he would slam the door to keep out his prying father and nosy sisters and she would be alone with him, sitting on his bed, almost close enough to feel the heat radiating from his skin.

Her daydream about visiting the Kurosaki residence for the first time was vastly different from the reality that she now found herself in—perched on the edge of Yuzu's bed, clutching a mug of hot tea, Ichigo nowhere in sight. She was both tremendously relieved and extremely disappointed at his absence.

Rukia sat at the other end of the bed, staring silently into her mug. It was a moment before either of them spoke.

Rukia finally broke the silence. "I suppose it wasn't me you were expecting," she said quietly.

"It wasn't," Orihime admitted. "But I'm very glad it was you anyway. I didn't realize it until now, but you were the person I've been wanting to talk to the most."

The words came out suddenly, unbidden, but as she spoke them, Orihime realized they were true. An anxiousness that had been constricting her chest ever since the day Rukia disappeared was starting to loosen.

"More than anyone else, more than Chad or even Ichigo, it was you I had the most regret leaving behind," Rukia confessed. "I'm sorry I left without telling you why. I'd half hoped you would lose your memories of me like everyone else and find a way to… move on."

Orihime tentatively took a sip of her tea. It was too hot, and scalded her tongue.

"It's not been so much moving on as it has been life dragging me by the wrists and me running after it, trying not to fall down," she mused. "A lot has happened since you left." _That's an understatement,_ she thought.

"Oh?" Rukia asked, smiling sympathetically. "May I ask what?"

Orihime's thoughts turned back to the madness of the past few months. Shinji showing up at school. Tatsuki in the hospital. Being attacked by a creature that was and was not a hollow. The conversation with her family last night…

Rukia noticed Orihime's troubled expression. "I'm sorry. It's rude of me to ask about you when I'm the one who suddenly went missing. I think I should go first."

 **Tuesday**

 **8:47 p.m.**

Orihime sat on the couch in the middle of their "living room." Rose sat next to her. Hachi stood on her other side—sitting would mean turning one of their only pieces of furniture into matchsticks. Others gathered around, some (like Hiyori) stayed out of sight, but within earshot, Orihime knew.

"It's finally time we tell you about the day we took you in, Orihime," Hachi began.

Orihime was perched on the edge of the couch, her back straight, hands folded politely on her knees as if she was having a meeting with her boyfriend's parents for the first time and not her family. Orihime knew where she had come from, technically—she had been to the house where she had supposedly once lived, had met her "brother," had seen the family portrait. But that was a different Orihime. This Orihime had lived forever here in this warehouse-makeshift-home with these people. It didn't matter where she came from, she told herself.

"It was me and Hachi who found you!" Mashiro blurted from where she was sprawled out on the floor. "We were going to pick up lunch, but Hachi said he felt something weird so we went to go investigate."

"There'd been a hollow attack," Hachi continued. "An unusually powerful hollow had attacked your home and killed your family, but for some reason left you alone. It was gone when we got there, dead or otherwise we didn't know. But there you were, sitting out front, looking a bit dazed and confused."

"But then Hachi went up to you and handed you a red bean bun and you ate the entire thing almost in one bite!"

"And then you smiled at me like it was me you had been waiting for the entire time. And I knew we couldn't just leave you there."

He lapsed into silence.

"And then...?" Orihime prodded.

This time it was Kensei who spoke. "And then we raised you. The best we could, at least. Some of us better than others." He looked pointedly at where Lisa sat across the room, absorbed in a magazine.

"Hey, I babysat as much as anyone else did," she countered.

"If you count 'babysitting' as being in the same room as her while reading your dirty magazines!"

"At least I didn't try to get her into a matching jumpsuit."

"This is fashionable!" Mashiro protested, pouting.

"Or try to lure her away with a trail of bean buns," Shinji sniggered.

A wayward shoe appeared out of nowhere and struck him on the face.

"I understand all of that," Orihime said. "And I remember well enough what happened that night when I ran away, and the conversation following. I understand what hollows are and why they exist and what they do. What I want to know is what _you're_ doing here. Who are you, really? Why do you live in this warehouse instead of a normal house? I know where I came from. Where did _you_ come from?"

There was silence. Orihime could hear a bird chirping outside. Lisa flipped a page of her magazine. And then—

"That's a long story," Shinji said. "So get comfortable."

 **Wednesday**

 **6:58 p.m.**

"So you see," Rukia concluded, "It was never really about any kind of punishment. I hadn't done anything wrong. I was just a pawn caught up in an unfortunate game of—what do you call it? Chess?—and I happened to be standing in the way of the other team making the final checkmate."

"But Ichigo came to save you."

Rukia smiled. "Yes, the knight in shining armor. And a bishop and a rook, as well."

"Uryu and Chad."

"Yes. They all risked their lives to save me and almost died. For me! I didn't deserve it. A knight shouldn't risk his life to save a pawn."

"He would risk his life for a queen, though."

Rukia sighed. "You don't understand. You don't know what I did to him, what I said to him. He was just trying to save me and I left him on the street in the middle of the night, in the rain, to die. He should have just let _me_ die," she said bitterly.

"That's what makes him a knight, I suppose. If we were only allowed to protect those who deserved it, we wouldn't be able to defend even ourselves."

Rukia gave her a reluctant smile and stared into her mug.

"But what I don't understand," Orihime said suddenly, "is who the other team was."

"The opposing team's king," Rukia explained, "would be a cold-hearted soul reaper named Aizen."

 **Tuesday**

 **9:23 p.m.**

"Aizen?" Orihime asked.

"Yes," Kensei nodded. "An ex-soul reaper with a penchant for performing twisted experiments."

"And he experimented on you?"

"He experimented on all of us," Lisa interjected from her corner. "Kensei and Mashiro were the first."

"And then Hiyori!" Mashiro chirped. Orihime heard a grunt from behind the couch.

"And then the rest of us," Love concluded. "And we were banished from the Soul Society as his unfortunate victims."

"But... what kind of experiments exactly?"

 **Wednesday**

 **7:14 p.m.**

"Hollowfication," Rukia explained. "To put it simply, combining the powers of a soul reaper and a hollow into one being. Using the Hogyoku makes it possible, makes for a more _finished_ product."

"And this...Ho—thing was inside of you somehow? And by killing you he would get it out and take it?"

"Yes, although he ended up not killing me, as you can see. The whole execution business was a bit over-the-top, I think. He has a flair for the dramatic."

"I see," Orihime said slowly. All of the information she had gathered in the past 24 hours were a jumbled mess in her brain, but she was slowly piecing them together. Before long, she would figure out where she fit into everything, she was sure.

"Just one last question," she said, tracing her pinky finger around the lip of the empty mug. "You came here in the first place because you were assigned here, went back to this 'Soul Society' to be executed, and stayed there because Ichigo saved you and cleared your name. So why are you here now?"

"Ah," said Rukia, leaning forward slightly. "Well, that's where it starts to get interesting."

 **Tuesday**

 **9:45 p.m.**

"We had no other choice but to come here," Hachi answered. "After we were 'hollowfied' against our will, we were treated as any hollow found wandering in the Soul Society would be—sentenced to death. We were rescued by a man who risked many things for us—he made all of the necessary preparations for us to live quietly in this world, among humans. And we've been doing so for many, many years."

"And that's the end of the story," finished Shinji.

When she was little, Orihime had often wondered about the life her family members lived. They rarely seemed to leave the warehouse, except to pick up food or other supplies, though she supposed they had plenty of time to be out and about while she was at school. She wondered why they didn't have jobs and go to work like her friends' parents did, dressed in their suits and carrying their briefcases. She had a greater respect for them now, knowing what they had gone through and what they were still going through.

"Hold up," she interjected. "So now that you're all these special soul-reaper-hollows—"

"Vizard," proffered Rose, stopping her with an index finger.

"Vizard," accepted Orihime. "So you all have, like, special powers? Can I see them?"

"No," Kensei announced, in a tone that allowed no room for argument. "Absolutely not."

"Why not?" Came Hiyori's drawling voice from where she was reclining behind the couch. "She knows everything else. Why not show her your mask?"

"Because I said it's enough!"

Hiyori knew a fight when she smelled one, and she never backed down from an opportunity to heckle someone into one.

"Scared, Kensei?" She taunted. "Scared of what might happen? Scared you won't be able to control your hollow around her? If _you_ are, then I'll—"

Kensei's eyes flashed with rage and his sword was in his hands in a moment, Hiyori's in hers. What took place next happened too fast for Orihime's eyes to follow, but all of a sudden Shinji was there, his sword crossed with Kensei's, his foot pressing Hiyori's into the ground.

"Now it really is enough," he said softly, yet with obvious authority. "Our little family meeting is over for today, I think."

Orihime went to her room and lay in bed. She fell asleep knowing she had more answers than when she had woken up that morning, but also with a better understanding of how little she really knew. If only there were someone else who could give her more answers, more pieces to the puzzle, she thought with frustration.

 **Wednesday**

 **7:16 p.m.**

"The reason I'm here now," Rukia continued, "would be Aizen's doing. Think about it. He now has an object that will let him turn a hollow into an arrancar—a kind of hollow with soul reaper powers if you remember—it's only natural that he would use it. What's to stop him from building an army to destroy the Soul Society and wreak havoc in the world of the living?"

"So you think that's what he's doing, then?"

"Yes, or something similar to that. We think there's something that he wants from this world, from this town perhaps, though we're not quite sure what it is."

"What could he possibly want from Karakura Town?" frowned Orihime. "There's nothing here."

"Perhaps," admitted Rukia. "Perhaps not. But the arrancar have already been to this town twice, most likely ordered here by Aizen himself."

Orihime's mind flashed to her encounter the night before. The creature who was not a man and not a hollow—he must have been one of these arrancar.

"I know," she said. "I think I met one yesterday. But when was the other time?"

Rukia's surprise was palpable. "You—you met one? But—how did—ah." She closed her eyes for a moment. "That can wait. Yes, there were many that appeared last night. I fought one myself. The other time was not long ago, just before I came back here. One of Ichigo's friends was badly hurt."

Tatsuki. So she'd had the bad luck to have a run in with an arrancar herself. She was lucky to be alive, Orihime knew. How much was happening in this town without Orihime realizing?

"There's so many more things I want to ask you," Orihime admitted, absent-mindedly bringing her empty mug up to her lips. "But not enough time."

"There's never enough time," Rukia agreed, smiling. "Besides, it's your turn now."

"It's a long story," Orihime sighed. "How about I make some more tea?"

 **8:42 p.m.**

It was completely dark by the time Orihime finally left the Kurosaki residence. Mr. Kurosaki had invited her to stay for dinner and his girls had chimed in excitedly, but she had politely refused, insisting that her family was waiting for her. Besides, she would feel strange eating at Ichigo's house without him there, and Rukia had quietly told her he had gone missing after yesterday's battle, just outside of the range at which she could detect spiritual pressure.

The revelations about Ichigo and the role he had played in rescuing Rukia had not surprised her—it fit inside her understanding of who Ichigo was as a person. Fierce, determined, willing to do anything to protect his friends. She wished she could have gone with him and stood by his side while he fought to save Rukia, and wondered if anything would have gone differently had she been there. Maybe _she_ would have come back different. Maybe she would finally understand whatever force it was inside of her, whatever presence it was that was trying to make itself known.

Heading down familiar streets, she listened to the _skree-skree_ of the cicadas announcing a summer that was soon coming to an end. She was not sad to see it go. It had been a strange and difficult one.

She finally made it to the street where her warehouse-home was, slipping inside the barrier that she had no trouble sensing. "I'm home!" she shouted, striding through the open doors and loudly announcing her arrival.

She was met with a silence that puzzled her. There was no Shinji lying on the couch playing video games, no Lisa sprawled in the corner reading magazines. No Kensei came out to scold her for coming home so late, and she could hear no telltale sounds in the kitchen signifying that someone was making dinner.

She gazed around the room, confused, until she noticed a strange opening in the ground that she had never seen before. It connected to a flight of stairs that led down, down somewhere far below ground. It seemed her family hadn't told her all their secrets. She took a few tentative steps down the stairs and peered in.

She could make out the massive form of Hachi standing near the bottom of the stairs, in a room that appeared to be a wide, barren landscape rather than a cellar underneath a warehouse. The ceiling was even blue like the sky and lit up as if it were the middle of the day. She knew better than to be surprised at this point. She carefully made her way down the steps to demand answers.

Hachi caught sight of her and called her over with a wave. "What is this place?" Orihime demanded.

"We built this place many years ago so that we could train secretly, out of the way of prying humans," he said by way of explanation. "Here we can let loose and fight and be ourselves with no restraints."

"And use your powers?" Orihime asked.

"Yes," he answered.

She looked around eagerly for a sign of any of her family members using said powers. Kensei had been so adamant the day before about her not seeing them, which in turn had only made her want to see them more. Maybe he had just been in a bad mood and had changed his mind since then.

Orihime noticed most of her family members were sprawled or crouched or standing a few feet away, their gaze directed towards something she couldn't see. Orihime counted eight, including herself. Only Hiyori was absent.

She heard her shrill voice suddenly, yelling something across the landscape that she couldn't make out. Orihime would have thought it was Shinji she was taking out her grievances upon, had he not been sitting just off to the side picking his nose.

Then suddenly, someone else stumbled into view. Someone dressed in a Japanese-style black robe, his orange hair disheveled, face coated in sweat and grime. Ichigo looked up in her direction.

"Orihime?!" he exclaimed, just before he was pummeled into the earth by one of Hiyori's sandals.


	18. The Same Box

A/N: Two updates in the same month! Whoo! Keep up all the lovely reviews—I go back and read over them when I need encouragement. You guys are the best :)

* * *

 **9:02 p.m.**

A cloud of dust rose and settled. Ichigo gingerly picked himself off the ground, groaning.

"This is no time to be napping, Ichigo!" Hiyori scolded, fitting her sandal back on to her foot. "Start again!"

"Wait, wait!" Ichigo shouted, glancing back and forth between Orihime and the tiny, fierce pigtailed woman in front of him. His protests were ignored. "Put on your mask, Ichigo!" Her voice became suddenly deeper, richer, darker, and a bone white mask with a long, menacing looking horn materialized on her face. "Or I'll pummel you again!"

She lunged towards Ichigo who swore, and a similar mask quickly formed on his face, this one sleeker than Hiyori's, with red swirl patterns. He lifted up an enormous sword almost as long as he was tall, and guarded himself against a swipe Hiyori made in his direction. Their blades met with a loud _clang_ , and they struggled against each other for a moment to gain ground. Then, all of a sudden, Ichigo's mask splintered with a loud _crack_ and fell to the dirt in pieces. He stumbled back and Hiyori took advantage of his sudden weakness to knock him down again.

"How long was that?" asked Shinji.

"About four seconds," Kensei answered, looking at a stopwatch.

"Pathetic!" Hiyori shouted in disgust. "You're a disgrace to vizard everywhere, Ichigo! Stand up and fight like a man already or run home!"

Ichigo started to pick himself up for the second time in thirty seconds. "Would you just wait a second?!"

"Life doesn't wait, Ichigo!" She had pulled off her mask and her voice had returned to it's normal shrill quality. "Defend yourself!"

As if of their own accord, Orihime's legs began to move toward where Ichigo lay prostrate on the ground, trying to pull himself up onto his hands and knees. She grabbed an arm and helped him stand up.

"Err, thanks," he said awkwardly, averting his gaze, his free hand clutching the back of his head in embarrassment.

"No problem," she said, feeling equally unsure about this unexpected development.

Rose's voice announcing dinner broke the awkward silence.

"Last one there has to do the dishes!" Mashiro shouted, racing upstairs.

 **9:46 p.m.**

Orihime scrubbed the remnants of curry from a particularly stubborn pot.

"I didn't realize this was where you lived," Ichigo began suddenly, as he rinsed off a spoon.

"I know," Orihime responded. "I didn't tell anyone, not even Tatsuki. I didn't think anyone else would understand."

"I guess we've all kept our fair share of secrets," he mused, placing the piece of cutlery on a rack to dry.

She studied him for a moment out of the corner of her eye. He was back in his normal clothes—black jacket worn loosely over a T-shirt and jeans, and a pink, frilly apron Mashiro had forced on him completing the picture. The sleeves of his jacket were rolled up, exposing tanned forearms, where upon closer inspection Orihime could make out clearly defined muscles. The boy (man?) stood at least a head taller than her and while he was was certainly no Kensei, Orihime had no doubt there was not even a single ounce of fat on his body.

"I can take that," he said, indicating the pot she had momentarily abandoned her battle with. "Oh, here," she said blushing, embarrassed to have been caught staring, and handed it to him.

She wrenched her gaze away from him, face still red, and tried to focus on washing the dirty plate in her hands.

"This must be a lot for you to take in," he began again, holding the pot up to the stream of water and watching the soap bubbles swirl down the drain. "Me being here, training with your family. Hell, it's a lot for me to take in."

"I'm still processing," she admitted. "I've had a lot of things to process lately." Her conversation with her parents yesterday, her unexpected meeting with Rukia, and now Ichigo was a vizard too, apparently. What was next?

"I have to ask you something, though," he started hesitantly. "Are you...one of them—a vizard, too? I'm sorry if I'm being too nosy, but—"

"I'm not," she said quickly. "I'm not quite sure what I am, but I'm not quite like my family...or like you."

"But you can see me," he protested. "As a soul reaper, I mean. Most people can't."

She had followed him up the stairs after Rose's dinner announcement had brought an end to training. They trailed the others at a distance who had all hurried up to the kitchen to avoid being last and stuck with dish-washing duty. She had watched him find his body (unceremoniously sprawled in a corner—she had not seen _that_ coming in), picking it up and slipping into it. With a start, she realized she had done the same once, all those years ago after her brother had attacked her.

"I know. I know I'm different too, just not sure yet in what way."

They heard a quiet, muffled noise behind them, as if someone was making shushing noises.

"Nothing wrong with being different from this crowd," he said, grabbing the still-wet pot, striding toward the entrance of the kitchen, and whipping it around the corner. It made contact with something with a loud _thump_ and there were lots of protests and Ichigo yelling about eavesdroppers and Shinji was lying on the ground dramatically clutching his head in pain.

 _One of them_ he had said earlier, Orihime realized, not _one of us._ For whatever reason, Ichigo did not want to include himself with the rest of her family members. He did not want to be considered a vizard.

 **Tuesday**

 **9:14 p.m.**

"Err—it's your turn for the bath, Ichigo," Orihime said, still toweling off her dripping hair.

Ichigo looked up from where he lay sprawled on the couch. "Oh—thanks."

It had been two weeks since Ichigo Kurosaki had made himself a permanent guest at the warehouse. He trained fervently, starting early in the morning and not finishing until many hours after the sun had set. Not that you could tell time well in that strange underground training area.

The first few days Ichigo was up before anyone else was, full of too much energy and ready to put it to use fighting. His enthusiasm fizzled out quickly as the long hours began to take their toll, and it became an endeavor in and of itself getting him out of bed, but Hiyori took great joy in finding new, interesting ways to wake him up in the morning. Orihime could often hear his yelps on her way out the door to school, and almost felt bad for him. Almost.

No one was really surprised at Ichigo's absence from school. Their homeroom teacher didn't even blink when Orihime told her that he would be in the hospital for a little while and she would be bringing his homework to him. He had a reputation as a bit of a delinquent, one who was always getting into fights and injuring himself. Orihime realized that this was mostly true, though unbeknownst to most people, his fights were rarely with other humans.

She took her time getting home after school each day, staying late at her handicrafts club or going grocery shopping, content to ponder all of the new happenings in her life. That Ichigo Kurosaki was staying at her home was a secret that she kept to herself and thought about often, as if she had a precious gem hidden in her pocket that she was constantly reaching for, stroking it lightly with her finger to remind herself that it was still there, turning it over and over in her hand to familiarize herself with the feel, the shape of it.

She did not even tell Tatsuki after she was released from the hospital, who had commented that she had not seen the orange-haired boy there, then shrugged and concluded that he must be staying at his family's clinic. Orihime didn't correct her.

Every day after Orihime got home and made sure dinner was cooked and dishes were washed, she would sit Ichigo down and teach him all she had learned that day, helping him with his homework and letting him copy her notes.

"And I talked with all of our teachers, and they said you could make up all of the tests after you get out of the 'hospital!' Isn't that great?" Orihime chirped, proud of herself for making all the proper arrangements.

Ichigo had looked slightly sick at the thought.

Watching him walk down the hall to the bathroom, Orihime thought about how quickly she had become accustomed to this new daily schedule—school, watching Ichigo train, eating dinner, helping him with his homework, taking a bath, going to bed. It was this last part she had not yet gotten used to. As she lay awake in her room each night, her thoughts would drift to their guest staying down the hall. Her heart would constrict in her chest and she would have trouble breathing and she would force her body to fall asleep, desperately trying not to think about what this all meant.

 **Saturday**

 **2:11 p.m.**

"Check." Rukia moved her knight so that it was just a few spaces away from the enemy king.

Orihime frowned at the board and examined the remaining pieces. She moved her king back a space towards her, to safety.

Rukia picked up her rook, sliding it across the board. "Checkmate."

Orihime stared in disbelief. "What? It was a trap!"

The dark-haired woman smiled as she flicked over Orihime's king in an unnecessary declaration of victory. "It's called strategy."

"Ichigo is really bad at this game you know," Orihime said as she picked up her prostrate king, righting him.

"I bet he plays like he fights," Rukia agreed. "Recklessly, taking unnecessary risks, and willing to sacrifice himself to save even the weakest person. Noble sentiments, but ones that will do more harm than good when you're playing a game like this."

Orihime had taken it upon herself to teach Ichigo chess and it was exactly as Rukia described. She won easily every time. She knew it was not a reflection of his intelligence but his character—there was a lot you could tell about a person by the way they played chess.

Orihime considered the pieces, both the survivors and the discarded. She thought back to her conversation with Rukia from a few weeks ago. She had come back to visit several times since then, to keep her updated on Ichigo and to keep him updated on his sisters. She knew he felt bad about worrying his family and being away from home for so long, but he took his training very seriously. Orihime wondered what had happened to make him so fixated.

 _The knight_ , Rukia had called Ichigo, and it had been fitting. _The queen_ , Orihime had called Rukia and that had been more fitting still. And if Chad and Uryu were the rook and bishop, where did that leave her? Just a pawn? Maybe it didn't really matter, she told herself. After all, the game couldn't go on forever—someone would eventually emerge the winner. And once it ended, Orihime thought, watching Rukia put the game away—king or pawn, knight or queen—all the players would go back into the same box.


	19. Settling In

A/N: Here it is—we're already at chapter 19! In which the author pauses the plot for a bit and uses drabble prompts to develop some relationships. ;) Leave a review!

* * *

 _ **[Hair]**_

Ichigo was brushing his teeth one Saturday morning, having fought and defeated Shinji for the use of the bathroom. He could still hear the blonde vizard stomping down the hall, grumbling about annoying teenagers. Ichigo savored his victory, looking up from the sink to examine his reflection.

—and nearly gave himself a heart attack. He had glanced in the mirror and spotted a shaggy, disheveled monster reminiscent of some demon he had seen once in a book about Japanese yokai, standing right behind him. He spit all his toothpaste over the glass, removing the creature from view.

"Hey Ichigo, finished with the bathroom yet?" a girl he realized to be Orihime asked him.

"Errr, yeah," he said, quickly wiping up the mess with his sleeve and dashing into the hallway. He looked over his shoulder. She had pulled out a brush and had already started vigorously attacking the tangled mess on her head.

Orihime was a different person in the morning.

 ** _[Alarm]_**

If Hiyori had the shortest temper of the vizard, Ichigo concluded, Hachi had the biggest heart.

It was Hachi who had found their newest member and taken her in, Orihime had confided in him, convincing the other vizard to give raising the tiny human girl a shot.

He had brought in other strays since then: tiny, week-old kittens mewing piteously, dogs with missing limbs and bald spots in their fur, the strangest a tanuki with a missing ear. Kensei put his foot down each time, refusing to allow any of the animals in the warehouse, to the dismay of Hachi and Orihime, and occasionally, Mashiro, who often accompanied the largest vizard on his animal rescues.

Ichigo followed him on one of his daily excursions one afternoon, partly out of curiosity and partly out of his desire to escape one of Hiyori's nasty moods. Hachi had given him a heavy bag to carry, full to bursting with things he could only guess, but Ichigo could hear metal clinking against metal as he adjusted one of the straps.

"There's a good spot a few blocks away from our warehouse," Hachi explained as they walked. "Less likely to arouse suspicion."

They rounded a corner and found Orihime crouched next to a run-down building reminiscent of the vizard's own ramshackle home, petting a tiny orange and white kitten. It gave a heartbreaking mew and the girl opened a small can of tuna and set it down in front the creature, who immediately set about devouring its contents.

Orihime looked up. "Hey, Ichigo!" she greeted cheerfully. "Want to come pet it? It's so cute."

All of this sneaking around just to feed one tiny cat? Hachi really was a dedicated—

The door of the building slammed outward suddenly and a green-haired woman in a jumpsuit sprang into view. "HEEEEYYYYY IIIICHIGOOOO!" Mashiro shouted and Ichigo cringed in surprise. But he was more startled by what he saw behind her: a battalion—no, an entire army of cats, too many to count. They covered the concrete floor of the building in a multi-colored, breathing, mewing rug.

And every one of them was staring at the bag in his hands. A bag, Ichigo just now realized, that was filled with cans of cat food. He flinched as a little _tink_ sounded next to him as Hachi rang a tiny bell that looked ridiculously child-sized in his massive hands.

Immediately, the horde began to descend upon him, streaming past Mashiro as they rushed out the door. Ichigo could see the hunger in their eyes. He felt a stab of panic.

"Wh-what is this?!"

 ** _[Loser]_**

"What is this for?" he asked, as Love lead him into their "living room."

"We're drawing straws for cooking duty," Rose explained, the objects in question clutched in his hand so that only the tops peeked out past his fingers. "Why don't you go first? You'll have a better chance of getting out of it that way," he offered kindly.

Ichigo's hand hesitated over the small bundle as he considered what he knew about the blonde-haired man. Was he the kind of person to hide the marked straw closest to Ichigo because he assumed that's where the teenager would absentmindedly choose first? Or would he assume that Ichigo would anticipate this and go for the straw farthest from him?

"Hurry up already," Hiyori barked from where she was reclining off to the side. "I'll be an old lady by the time you choose one."

Ichigo played it safe and pulled out a slender straw from somewhere in the middle. He glanced at the bottom, which was dyed black.

"Wow, what bad luck!" Love exclaimed. "Well, you're on cooking duty for the week. No need for the rest of us to draw straws then," he said to Rose.

Rose nodded and started to put them into his pocket. Ichigo's eyes narrowed suspiciously and slapped the vizard's hand, causing him to drop the straws onto the floor.

All of the colored straws, that was. Every one of them had their tips colored black.

"You cheated!" Ichigo accused, affronted.

"I like to think of it as 'playing strategically,'" Rose countered, crouching down to gather the straws. "I never said I hadn't marked all of them and you didn't ask. Really, Ichigo, that was poor oversight on your part."

A vein bulged on Ichigo's forehead with enough force to rival Kensei's.

 ** _[Help]_**

"I did all of the shopping on my way home from school today," Orihime chattered at him as she dumped several bulging plastic bags onto the table in the kitchen. She had carried these by herself all the way from the grocery store? Clearly Ichigo had underestimated her strength.

"I thought we might make curry today," she said, pulling one of the bags towards her. "I bought all of the ingredients for it. In this bag is the leeks, red bean paste, tuna, and broccoli. In this bag is the tofu, tomato sauce, and—"

Ichigo mentally steeled himself. The vizard ate her cooking all the time and were still breathing, clearly. But then again, they were technically dead. Did that mean they couldn't be affected by a bad meal? Would his body react differently?

He watched her pull an entire octopus out of another bag, its tentacles dangling.

Next time, he was going to make a shopping list.

 ** _[Paranoia]_**

The vizard fought over almost everything. Who was going to do what chore, whose turn it was to watch TV, who got to read the newest copy of Shonen Jump first.

Ichigo lost almost every fight. It wasn't that he was bad at fighting or arguing—he was one of the best. Rivaled only by Renji. Or Rukia, maybe. It just seemed like the vizard played by a different set of rules, ones that he had not fully grasped yet. And so he lost, frequently.

Orihime, on the other hand, did not. She argued with her family cheerfully and with surprising vigor. This Orihime was different from the calm, peaceable girl he knew from school. This Orihime could stand her ground against even Hiyori.

Ichigo was impressed, he admitted to himself as he soaked in the lukewarm tub (as he was the last to bathe for the day, unsurprisingly). Sometimes Orihime offered to let him go first, but he was naturally too much of a gentleman to accept. Being last had its benefits sometimes. (Probably. He hadn't figured out what they were yet.)

But it had its downsides, too. It meant the other vizards were free to watch and make comments and criticisms as he went about his business. Ichigo had started looking over his shoulder more than he used to. And bath time was not exempt, unfortunately.

A shadow passed over the translucent door and hovered for a moment. It banged open violently, as if someone had kicked it.

Someone had. "ICHIGO, SNEAK ATTACK!" Mashiro yelled and leaped into the room.

Ichigo yelped and covered himself the best he could with his hands.

"Can't a guy get any privacy around here?!"

 ** _[Overindulge]_**

Ichigo was not asked to draw straws to cook again. This must have been decided at a family gathering he had not been privy to. He did not complain, though he did not feel that his cooking had been bad enough to warrant a special meeting. Especially considering the ingredients he'd had to work with.

But he'd had other tasks delegated to him instead and now it was Kensei's turn to cook. And after the first bite he doubted the vizards' sanity of letting anyone else cook, ever. He collapsed on the floor after the meal, belly bulging. Mashiro poked it, giggling. He swatted her away. Rose and Shinji discussed the best way to roll him to practice in the morning.

Ichigo was in his own bubble of food-coma-contentment and couldn't be bothered to care. Glancing at Kensei in his pink frilly apron and still holding a spatula, he absentmindedly decided the vizard would make a good housewife.

He heard a snigger and looked up. Shinji was smirking at him. Lisa was tittering. And Kensei had a vein bulging in his neck.

It seemed in his stupor, he had accidentally made this observation aloud. He didn't even have time to regret it.

What followed after made Ichigo rethink his statement. Kensei would make a very bad housewife indeed.

 ** _[Happiest]_**

Orihime was an empathetic young woman. She was very attuned to other's feelings. She was always careful in her speech not to offend or upset the person she was conversing with, unless of course, that person was Shinji. Or Hiyori. Or Kensei. On second thought, she wasn't that careful.

But she was attentive. She liked to observe what brought joy to other's lives and help them attain it. For Lisa, it was reading her magazines (that Kensei had expressly forbidden her from peeking at, though she did anyway). For Rose, it was listening to his favorite band. For Hiyori, it was beating up Shinji. (Sometimes, sacrifices had to be made, Orihime decided).

So she watched Ichigo. She watched him inhale Kensei's cooking and argue with Hiyori and stretch contentedly, arms over his head, after he emerged from the bath every evening. But none of these rivaled how he looked during his training sessions.

She watched him one day after school in the vizard's secret underground training area, close enough to get a good view but far enough away to avoid the clouds of dust and falling debris from dirtying her school clothes. He was sparring with Lisa this time, who panted as if she had just finished a marathon. Ichigo breathed heavily too, but Orihime could see the fierce joy in the grin he wore as he lunged forward to attack again.

She did not know what drove him to train. Whether it was to protect someone he cared about or for his own personal gain, Orihime was unaware of his reasons (though knowing Ichigo, it was probably the former). But she knew now that whether he was conscious of it or not, he lived for it, for the thrill of pitting himself against another, for the simple satisfaction in physical movement, for the pride in one's own skill.

Orihime played with the ends of her hair distractedly. She wondered if that was a joy she would ever experience.

 ** _[Stealthy]_**

Orihime wasn't nosy. She was just a little worried, really. It had been weeks since Chad and Uryu had been at school and she just wanted to make sure they were alright. It wasn't stalking if it was out of concern for the other person, right?

She mentioned it to Rukia one day when they were having tea, and the soul reaper admitted to knowing nothing of Uryu. "He's quite a mystery," she explained simply. Orihime agreed. That boy was the definition of "aloof." It was Chad she was more concerned about anyway. "Off training with Urahara probably," Rukia said dismissively, though she failed to define who this character was and what connection he had to her classmate. So Orihime set off to find out herself. She was an expert investigator, after all.

And she was becoming much better at sensing spiritual pressure too, she was starting to realize. She had started practicing with Ichigo. She focused on him when he was training, sometimes. Energy came off of him in waves, so strongly that it diluted his figure if she concentrated on him too hard, turning him into a blurry mess of brightly colored spiritual pressure.

She tried her family next. These were more subdued—rather than obscuring their figures, their spiritual pressure merely outlined them. Orihime wondered what made Ichigo so different.

She was starting to learn how to differentiate between them, too. If she closed her eyes and sharpened her mind, she could determine with some effort who was where, and to some extent, how they were occupied. The feeling of Ichigo fighting was quite different from Ichigo sleeping. Orihime enjoyed experimenting with this ability that was slowly starting to develop inside of her.

She focused her mind now, on her way home from school. She felt Ichigo in the distance, back at home, undoubtedly training. She searched around more. She felt Rukia too, but she was not at the Kurosaki home. She was with others, spiritual pressures that Orihime couldn't recognize. She followed them.

It led her down some side streets to a part of town she had never really been to. She squeezed out of the last alley and laid eyes on a bare courtyard and a Japanese-style building with the words "Urahara Shop" printed in bold kanji above the doors. She had never laid eyes on this building in her life. But Chad and Rukia were inside, she was sure of it.

Orihime, fearless explorer, stood in front of the sliding doors and hesitated.

 ** _[Typhoon]_**

Almost a month had passed, and Ichigo was slowly accustoming himself to daily life in the vizard household. Each inhabitant was a force to be reckoned with on their own; together they formed a capricious beast with habits, needs, demands of its own. Learning the quirks and ticks of each vizard was not enough, Ichigo was learning, you had to learn how they functioned or (didn't function) together.

Ichigo learned how to watch for warning signs—how to determine the difference between an irritated Kensei and an angry Kensei (the size of the vein in his forehead), how to tell if Rose and Lisa were fighting or merely quarreling (if she was looking at her magazine and not you, you were safe), when to join in with Shinji in heckling Hiyori and when to avoid her at all costs (it depended on whether or not she was hungry, or "hangry" according to Orihime), and when to participate in a family argument or just watch from the sidelines.

Sometimes dealing with this circus of a family felt to Ichigo a little bit like being outside in a typhoon, drenched and shivering, with only a flimsy umbrella turned inside-out that he was desperately clinging to.

He was starting to notice that the weather was usually sunnier when Orihime was at home. The moment she set foot in the door and announced her presence, the rain dried up and the wind stopped howling, and Ichigo righted his broken umbrella with a little effort and put it away.

No umbrellas were needed with Orihime. Ichigo warmed himself in her presence. She glowed with an inner radiance that shone through her eyes and lit up her face. Even her hair seemed to glow like fire in the right light.

In all the years he had known her, how had he not recognized it before? She was the sun.


End file.
